OBERON OLD & NEW by Burgess, Anthony - 1985

London: Hutchinson, 1985. Pp. 96(last blank), frontispiece; pictorial glazed paper wrappers, faintly scuffed; text block faintly browned; edges of leaves a trifle foxed; Hutchinson, London, 1985. First edition. *A paperback original. Carl Maria von Weber's opera Oberon was first performed at Covent Garden in 1826, with 'an execrable libretto by Planche which has hindered modern productions. When Anthony Burgess was approached by the Scottish Opera to write a new text, he found that the pantomime extravaganza of the original was curiously evocative of today's world: for the Caliph's Hall in Baghdad he has substituted a kind of modern Tehran.... Puck remains, and Oberon's magic horn is a powerful symbol in both music and text because, for all its humour and its modern implications, this is still very much a fairy opera' [wrapper blurb].