Renowned Mozart scholar Daniel Heartz brings his deep knowledge of social history, theater, and art to a study of the last and great decade of Mozart's operas. Mozart specialists will recognize some of Heartz's best-known essays here; but six pieces are new for the collection, and others have been revised and updated with little-known documents on the librettist's, composer's, and stage director's craft. All lovers of opera will value the elegance and wit of Professor Heartz's writing, enhanced by thirty-seven illustrations, many from his private collection.

The volume includes Heartz's classic essay on Idomeneo (1781), the work that continued to inspire and sustain Mozart through his next, and final, six operas. Thomas Bauman brings his special expertise to a discussion of Die Entführung aus dem Serail (1782). The ten central chapters are devoted to the three great operas composed to librettos by Lorenzo da Ponte—Le nozze di Figaro (l786), Don Giovanni (l787), and Così fan tutte (l790). The reader is treated to fresh insights on da Ponte's role as Mozart's astute and stage-wise collaborator, on the singers whose gifts helped shape each opera, and on the musical connections among the three works. Parallels are drawn with some of the greatest creative artists in other fields, such as Molière, Watteau, and Fragonard. The world of the dance, one of Heartz's specialties, lends an illuminating perspective as well.

Finally, the essays discuss the deep spirituality of Mozart's last two operas, Die Zauberflöte and La Clemenza di Tito (both l79l). They also address the pertinence of opera outside Vienna at the end of the century, the fortunes and aspirations of Freemasonry in Austria, and the relation of Mozart's overtures to the dramaturgy of the operas.

Daniel Heartz is Professor of Music at the University of California, Berkeley. Thomas Bauman is Professor of Music at the University of Washington, Seattle.

"One of the most important contributions to recent Mozart research. . . . I do not think that the complicated process of dealing with librettists, opera impresarios, and singers has ever been explained with such lucidity, or that any other musicologist has shown so deep an understanding of the various pressures on a composer in the composition and mounting of an opera."—Charles Rosen, New York Review of Books

"Heartz offers a wealth of profound insights on these immortal scores, from which even veteran Mozartians can learn. . . . A triumph of the publishing arts."—Allan Ulrich, San Francisco Examiner

"The level of analysis in these essays is so high, their cumulative effect so powerful, and the volume so beautifully composed and illustrated that one feels deeply grateful to have them gathered together."—Paul Robinson, Historical Performance

"Heartz's style is easy, almost conversational in tone. He has the great gift of being able to describe a complex sequence of shifting tonalities and textures so lucidly that he makes the drama come excitingly alive in purely verbal imagery. . . . A most welcome addition to the classics of the Mozart literature."—Alec Hyatt King, The Musical Times

ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award, American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers