'Mozart in Anglophone Cultures brings together papers given at the 15th Salzburg Annual Conference on English Literature and Culture held in 2006 to commemorate Mozart's 250th birthday. This volume concentrates in particular on the reception of Mozart and his work in English literature and film, on English translations and adaptations of Mozart's operas and songs, on the performance history of Mozart's operas on stages in the English-speaking world, and on relationships and influences between Mozart and English composers. Aspects covered in the volume include: Peter Shaffer's Amadeus as historiographic metafiction, the reception of Mozart in Australia, Mozart's work as intertext in James Joyce's Ulysses and Barbara Trapido's Temples of Delight, Mozart's influence on American ballet and W.H. Auden's re-writing of The Magic Flute. In its focus on the creative reception of Mozart rather than on Mozart's oeuvre, this book hopes to show the importance of a living myth in various cultural traditions (Victorian, Modernist and Postmodernist) - and, conversely, to reveal Mozart and his own age's mode of listening as being equally embedded in cultural traditions.' (Publisher's blurb)
'The purpose of this paper is not to discuss how Mozart is treated by the classical music industry and music aficionados of 'down under'. I lack the insight into these sections of Australian culture, and in any case my guess is that Mozart plays the same role in Sydney as in Vienna, New York or London. My aim is to engage with relevant literary responses to Mozart, mostly poetic ones, over a period of slightly more than a century - but that is half the white-settler history of Australia.' (p. 71)
