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Edward J. Dent must have felt a certain sense of satisfaction when he set out to revise this book for its second edition. Since its publication, Mozart's Operas had come to be recognized as the standard English-language study on the subject. And in the interval between editions, early curiosity about Mozart had gradually grown into the full-fledged international revival that continues unabated to this day.

In the preface, Dent writes: "When the first edition of this book was published in 1913 most of Mozart's operas were almost completely unknown" in England. No doubt this also was true in the United States and much of the rest of the world: At the mention of Mozart's name, turn-of-the-century operagoers would recall Don Giovanni (K. 527) and possibly Le nozze di Figaro (K. 492). Die Zauberflöte (K. 620) they may have known, too, but only in Italian as Il Flauto Magico. That was about it. The rest of Mozart's stage works -- Idomeneo (K. 366), Die Entführung aus dem Serail (K. 384), La clemenza di Tito (K. 621) -- had virtually disappeared.

Dent's little book probably had much to do with changing this situation. His was the first comprehensive English-language study of Mozart's operas and, in many respects (such as his perceptive analysis of Così fan tutte, K. 588), he was remarkably ahead of his time.

Even so, things did not turn out quite as he foresaw. Dent, professor of music at Cambridge University, thought opera ought to be available to everyone and was an advocate of giving performances in the vernacular. But his book does not mention the phonograph which, along with the compact disc, has done more to popularize Mozart's operas than any number of English-language performances ever could.

The book's table of contents shows clearly that the book is apportioned according to the perceived importance of the operas in Dent's day. For example, 34 pages are devoted to Idomeneo, 28 to Le nozze di Figaro, 72 to Don Giovanni and 58 to Die Zauberflöte. Così fan tutte and La clemenza di Tito do not fare nearly as well, with 21 and nine pages, respectively. Everything before Idomeneo is dispatched in a 20-page chapter titled "The Early Operas." ("The two childish entertainments Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebotes and Apollo et Hyacinthus may be dismissed at once," Dent curtly informs us.)

Even with this unfortunate (if understandable) bias, Dent's book should be required reading. His prose is straightforward, his arguments are presented with force and wit, and his message is clear: Mozart's operas should be judged on their own merits. Though this may seem obvious to us now, it was not so in 1913 or even in 1947.

Dent writes: "It has been for our own century and for the generation of the present day to rediscover Mozart, not as the expression of an imaginary age of innocence, still less as the musical illustrator of an equally imaginary century of rococo artificiality, but as the completely mature creator of music that we can still enjoy as a thing of delight for its own sake."