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Mozart and His Operas.

Article Excerpt
Mozart and His Operas. By David Cairns. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. [xi, 290 p. ISBN-10: 0520228987; ISBN-13: 9780520228986. $29.95.] Bibliographic references, index, illustrations.

The cornucopia of literature available on Mozart's operas makes a many-coursed banquet--some might say a groaning board--for the interested reader. David Cairns, in his new book, admits as much in his first sentence: "Another book on Mozart and his operas may not be needed" (p. 1). Authors on this topic have whipped up their own concoctions out of much the same ingredients, producing an almost endless variety, from delicacies to square meals to basic field rations. But the question is: can anyone bring anything new to the table?

In the late 18th century, magnificent feasts of five to six courses were the norm. So before the question above can be answered, let us sample some of the main treats already prepared. Brigid Brophy's Mozart the Dramatist: A New View of Mozart, His Operas and His Age (New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1964; reprint, New York: Da Capo Press, 1988), like a savory appetizer, is a brilliant meditation on the intellectual and cultural connections of the operas, with references as far afield as Sigmund Freud, Alexander Pope, Antoine Watteau, Soren Kierkegaard, Jane Austen, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Alma Mahler. It is somewhat dated in its unquestioned Freudian and anti-Beethovian stance, but it is full of surprising details and is organized by topic ("Anarchy, Impotence and Classicism," "Women and Opera"), rather than chronology.

For those who are ravenously...

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