This book investigates the cultural, social, and musical conditions that facilitated the collaboration between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte. Andrew Steptoe, a scholar of music history, utilizes historical records and contemporary accounts to reconstruct the environment of late 18th-century Vienna. He argues that the success of these three operas is inseparable from the specific intellectual and political climate of the era, as well as the practical constraints of the operatic stage at the time.

Experts frequently cite this work as a foundational text for understanding the contextual origins of the Mozart-Da Ponte collaborations. Readers often note the academic density of the prose, which provides a rigorous look at the intersection of music and history.