Mozart liked billiards and was apparently very good at it. He played often with his friend, the Irish tenor Michael Kelly, and almost always won. (Kelly sang Don Basilio and Don Curzio in the first performance of Figaro in 1786). When he couldn’t find a partner he would play by himself as he indicates in this 1791 letter to his wife. The opera he refers to is The Magic Flute: "As soon as you were gone I played two games of billiards with Herr von Mozart who wrote the opera for Schikaneder’s theatre…then I had [my servant] bring a black coffee, to which I smoked a glorious pipe of tobacco…” A billiard table with five balls and 12 cues was on Mozart's estate when he died in 1791.

Source: WQXR