[2] The operetta is based on James Joyce's 1922 novel Ulysses.

[5] The texts of some of the songs also appear in the novels Earthly Powers (1980) and The End of World News (1982).

Burgess provides a very free interpretation of Joyce’s text, with his own changes and interpolations, all set to original music that blends opera with Gilbert and Sullivan and music hall styles.

[6] The number “Copulation without population” in Act Two is an example – it’s set in the style of a humorous, bawdy music hall romp and features a chorus of drunks and prostitutes - but it has little to do with the corresponding passage from Ulysses.

Hans Keller called it "a pathetic pastiche" in which "senseless tonal and rhythmic antics...take the place of even the most elementary invention.