Mozart the dramatist - Brigid Brophy

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 Entfhrung aus dem Serail, Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Cos fan tutte, and Die Zauberflte - 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 a prize-winning British novelist, essayist, critic and political campaigner, championing gay marriage, pacifism, vegetarianism, prison reform and Public Lending Right. Her celebrated debut novel, Hackenfeller's Ape, was published in 1953. It was followed by many other acclaimed novels including The King of a Rainy Country, Flesh, The Finishing Touch, In Transit, and The Snow Ball (which Faber are reissuing with a new foreword by Eley Williams), as well as critical studies of Mozart, Aubrey Beardsley and Ronald Firbank, among other subjects. Brophy's marriage to art historian Michael Levey encompassed a thirteen-year relationship with Iris Murdoch. She died in 1995.