Mozart the Dramatist - Softcover

Brigid Brophy first published her passionate, profoundly original "Mozart the Dramatist" in 1964, revisiting it subsequently in 1988. Organised by theme, the text offers brilliant readings of Mozart's five most famous operas - "Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail," "Le Nozze di Figaro," "Don Giovanni," "Cosi fan tutte," and "Die Zauberflote" - while a 1988 preface reconsiders "Idomeneo" and "La Clemenza di Tito." Brophy's analysis is richly informed by her readings and interests in psychoanalysis, myth, and relations between the sexes, but her stress above all is on Mozart's 'unique excellence', his 'double supremacy' both as a 'classical' and 'psychological' artist. " '"An illuminating, invigorating, thought-provoking and profoundly human book, of immense value to any lover of Mozart.' Jane Glover " 'No one has ever written better on Mozart.' Peter Conrad, "Observer" 'Immensely enjoyable.' Peter Gay, "London Review of Books"

Brigid Brophy (1929-1995) was an acclaimed novelist, essayist, critic and campaigner. Her fiction included Hackenfeller's Ape (1953), The King of a Rainy Country (1956), Flesh (1962), The Finishing Touch (1963), The Snow Ball (1964), In Transit (1969), The Adventures of God in His Search for the Black Girl (1971) and Palace without Chairs (1978). Her non-fiction included Black Ship to Hell (1962), Mozart the Dramatist (1964), two books about Aubrey Beardsley - Black and White (1968) and Beardsley and His World (1976), and Prancing Novelist: In Praise Of Ronald Firbank (1973). In 1954 she married the art historian Michael Levey (later the director of the British National Gallery from 1973-1987, knighted in 1981). The couple had one daughter, Kate. Brophy was a noted campaigner on several platforms, in particular her fight to establish an authors' Public Lending Right and her vice-presidency of the National Anti-Vivisection Society.