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Mozart the Dramatist

The number of books about Mozart has exploded over the past few years, as a glance at this site's bibliography will show. And the books listed here represent only the edge of a vast crescendo of biographies, musical analyses and historical surveys. Nearly every aspect of Mozart's brief existence has been picked apart by industrious scholars who have spent lifetimes earnestly poring over his autographs, letters and other contemporary documents. As a result, we have an excellent idea of what Mozart's day-to-day existence was like, what his income was and who was included in his extensive circle of friends.

Most of these books are interesting and many are important in that they help round out our understanding of Mozart and his place in history. But, when you come right down to it, it is his music -- and only his music -- that really matters. In Mozart the Dramatist, novelist (and nonmusician) Brigid Brophy provides an extraordinarily intelligent account of why this is so.

Brophy, called "a sparky Queen of the Night" by one reviewer, possesses the rare confidence of someone thoroughly acquainted with Enlightenment literature and intimately familiar with virtually every note of her subject's operas. This confidence is expressed by a take-no-prisoners writing style and an almost grating punctiliousness. ("When I want to mention Die Entführung aus dem Serail by a shorter title, I call it Il Seraglio," she curtly informs readers of the 1988 edition. "That I have not altered, because it is correct.")

But her idiosyncracies are easily overlooked by her readers, whom she identifies as those "who have recognized Mozart as a transcendent case. Some of them will not listen to any operas except Mozart's. More, and commanding more respect, love both music and opera, and have recognized Mozart not only as the operatic composer but as the composer -- perhaps as the artist."

Early on she telegraphs the technique she will use throughout the book when she calls Mozart "a supremely intelligent and a supremely psychological artist." Unlike other biographers, she not only puts the composer himself on the couch; she subjects the entire Age of Enlightenment to rigorous psychoanalysis as well. The result at times is breathtaking as Brophy instructs her readers on subjects such as "The Importance of Mozart's Operas," "Women and Opera" and "Seduction in Mozart's Operas." Along the way, you will learn the real identity of Cherubino, what Don Giovanni has in common with Hamlet and the truth behind Die Zauberflöte.

"Mozart knew his own genius when he chose opera," writes Brophy in her final chapter. "He was a creative psychologist whose characters, who exist in music plus drama, deserve the serious and searching affection -- passion, even -- we give to Shakespeare's."

Brophy passionately applies her own "searching affection" to not only Mozart's characters, but to Mozart as well. To our great benefit.