Ian Woodfield is Professor of Historical Musicology at Queen's University Belfast, and has specialized in Mozart's operas for the last sixteen years. He published a monograph with OUP in 2000 entitled Music of the Raj: A Social and Economic History of Music in Late 18th-Century Anglo-Indian Society.

• List of FiguresList of TablesAbbreviationsIntroductionSources1 Inter-troupe rivalries: the reception of Figaro2 Dynastic alliances: the genesis of Don Giovanni3 Operatic satire: Dittersdorf's Figaro4 In time of war: the Vienna Don Giovanni5 Italian opera reprieved: L'ape musicale6 Da Ponte as impresario: the revival of FigaroConclusionBibliographyIndex

Woodfield (historical musicology, Queen's Univ., Belfast) deftly navigates the voluminous archival and periodical documentation on this hitherto neglected subject. He shows the rivalry to be no less fraught than the better-known and publicly waged Querelle des Bouffons between devotees of French opera and Italian opera that occurred in Paris in the 1750s. Although it is a mainstay of opera history that the musical genre is inextricably linked with politics (given the expense of production that almost always needs royal patronage and/or upper-class subventions), very few books have shown how closely aesthetic tastes are tied to specific political events (in this case, the Austro-Turkish War of 1788-91 and its aftermath). Particularly interesting is the discussion of Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf's opera Die Hochzeit des Figaro, a work that was contemporaneous with and rival to Mozart's opera Le nozze di Figaro. Summing up: Highly recommended