| Amadeus | |
|---|---|
 Playbill, 1981 (Broadhurst Theatre) | |
| Written by | Peter Shaffer |
| Characters | |
| Date premiered | 2 November 1979 |
| Place premiered | Royal National Theatre London, England |
| Original language | English |
| Subject | Biography of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart |
| Genre | Drama, tragedy |
| Setting | 1783–1825; Vienna, Austria; the Court of Joseph II |
Amadeus is aplay byPeter Shaffer which gives a fictional account of the lives of composersWolfgang Amadeus Mozart andAntonio Salieri, imagining a rivalry between the two at the court ofJoseph II, Holy Roman Emperor. First performed in 1979, it was inspired byAlexander Pushkin's short 1830 playMozart and Salieri, whichNikolai Rimsky-Korsakov used in 1897 as the libretto for anopera of the same name.
The play makes significant use of the music of Mozart, Salieri and other composers of the period. The premieres of Mozart's operasThe Abduction from the Seraglio,The Marriage of Figaro,Don Giovanni, andThe Magic Flute are the settings for key scenes. It was presented at theRoyal National Theatre, London in 1979, then moved toHer Majesty's Theatre in theWest End followed by aBroadway production. It won the 1981Tony Award for Best Play and Shaffer adapted it for the much acclaimed1984 film of the same name.
Since the play's original run, Shaffer extensively revised his play, including changes to plot details; the following is common to all revisions.
The composer Salieri is an old man, having long outlived his fame. Speaking directly to the audience, he claims to have used poison to assassinate Mozart and promises to explain himself. The action thenflashes back to the eighteenth century, at a time when Salieri, then the court composer of the Austrian emperor, has not met Mozart but has heard of him and his music. He adores Mozart's compositions and is thrilled at the chance to meet him, during asalon honouring his patron. But when he finally catches sight of Mozart, he is deeply disappointed to find the composer lacking the grace and charm of his compositions. Mozart is crawling around on his hands and knees, engaging in profane talk with his future brideConstanze Weber.
Salieri cannot reconcile Mozart's boorish behaviour with the genius that God has inexplicably bestowed upon him. A devout Catholic all his life, Salieri cannot believe that God would choose Mozart over him for such a gift. Salieri renounces God and vows to do everything in his power to destroy Mozart as a way of retaliating against his Creator. Salieri pretends to be Mozart's ally to his face while doing his utmost to destroy his reputation and any success his compositions may have. Mozart's own fortunes are not helped due to his vulgar nature. On more than one occasion, only the intervention of EmperorJoseph II allows Mozart to continue (interventions which Salieri opposes and then is all too happy to take credit for when Mozart assumes it washe who intervened). Salieri humiliates Constanze by forcing her to strip naked in front of him when she comes to him for help. Hesmears Mozart's character with the Imperial Court, ruining many opportunities for the composer.
A major theme inAmadeus is Mozart's repeated attempts to win the acceptance of Vienna's aristocracy with increasingly brilliant compositions, which are always frustrated either by Salieri's machinations or because the aristocrats cannot appreciate Mozart's innovations and willingness to challenge the accepted mores of classical music.
Towards the end of the play, with his life completely ruined, Mozart is visited one last time by Salieri, who reveals he has been Mozart's enemy all along. After hearing this, Mozart breaks down and is left totally defeated, singing a nursery tune. He later dies in Constanze's arms.
Salieri recounts on how he was praised throughout Europe for more than 30 years, after which audiences began to turn away from his music and toward that of Mozart, as the world finally comes to recognize his true genius. Salieri then reveals that he left a false confession of having murdered Mozart with arsenic in a last attempt to be remembered, and attempts to commit suicide with a razor. He survives and his confession is met with disbelief and eventually rejected. Defeated, Salieri, doomed to live the rest of his life in obscurity and failure, absolves the audience of their mediocrity.
The play used as incidental music mainly works by Mozart, for which in the first stage production arrangements were made byHarrison Birtwistle; the only piece included of Salieri being a “banal greeting march” on which Mozart extemporises mockingly to produce "Non più andrai" (the aria which closes Act 1 ofLe nozze di Figaro).[1]Nicholas Kenyon argues that the play (and film) helped to rekindle interest in Salieri's music and increase performances of his operas.[1]
Shaffer usedartistic licence in his portrayals of Mozart and Salieri. Documentary evidence suggests that there may have been some occasional antipathy between the two men but the idea that Salieri was the instigator of Mozart's demise is not taken seriously by scholars of the men's lives and careers. In fact, there is evidence that they enjoyed a relationship marked by mutual respect.[2] As an example, Salieri later tutored Mozart's sonFranz in music.[3] He probably conducted some of Mozart's works.[4]
WriterDavid Cairns calledAmadeus "myth-mongering" and argued against Shaffer's portrait of Mozart as "two contradictory beings, sublime artist and fool", positing instead that Mozart was "fundamentally well-integrated". Cairns also rejects the "romantic legend" that Mozart always wrote out perfect manuscripts of works already completely composed in his head, citing major and prolonged revisions to several manuscripts (see:Mozart's compositional method).[5] Mozart scholarH. C. Robbins Landon commented that "it may prove difficult to dissuade the public from the current Schafferian view of the composer as a divinely gifted drunken lout, pursued by a vengeful Salieri. By the same token, Constanze Mozart, she (in the film) of the extraordinary décolleté and fatuous giggle, needs to be rescued from Schaffer's view of her".[6]
Amadeus was first presented at theNational Theatre, London in 1979, directed byPeter Hall and starringPaul Scofield as Salieri,Simon Callow as Mozart andFelicity Kendal as Constanze. (Callow appeared in the film version in a different role.) It was later transferred in modified form toHer Majesty's Theatre in theWest End, starringFrank Finlay as Salieri.[7] The cast also includedAndrew Cruickshank (Rosenberg),Basil Henson (von Strack),Philip Locke (Greybig),John Normington (Joseph II) andNicholas Selby (van Swieten).[8]
The play premiered onBroadway on 11 December 1980 at theBroadhurst Theatre, withIan McKellen as Salieri,Tim Curry as Mozart andJane Seymour as Constanze.[9] It ran for 1,181 performances, closing on 16 October 1983 and was nominated for sevenTony Awards (Best Actor for both McKellen and Curry, Best Director for Peter Hall, Best Play, Best Costume Design, Lighting and Set Design forJohn Bury), of which it won five (including Best Play and Best Actor for McKellen). In 2015, Curry stated in an interview that the original Broadway production was the favourite stage production that he had ever been in.[10] During the run of the play McKellen was replaced byJohn Wood,Frank Langella,David Dukes,David Birney,John Horton andDaniel Davis. Curry was replaced byPeter Firth, Peter Crook,Dennis Boutsikaris,John Pankow,Mark Hamill and John Thomas Waite.[11] Also playing Constanze wereAmy Irving, Suzanne Lederer, Michele Farr, Caris Corfman andMaureen Moore.
In June 1981,Roman Polanski directed and co-starred (as Mozart) in a stage production of the play, first in Warsaw (withTadeusz Łomnicki as Salieri), then at theThéâtre Marigny in Paris withFrançois Périer as Salieri.[12][13] The play was again directed by Polanski, in Milan, in 1999.[14]
In 1982,Richard Wherrett directed aSydney Theatre Company production at theTheatre Royal Sydney. It starredJohn Gaden as Salieri,Drew Forsythe as Mozart andLinda Cropper as Constanze, withLyn Collingwood as Mrs Salieri andRobert Hughes as Venticello II. It ran from 6 April to 29 May 1982.[15] Adam Redfield (as Mozart) andTerry Finn (as Constanze) appeared in the 1984 Virginia Stage Company production, at the Wells Theatre inNorfolk, Virginia, directed by Charles Towers.[16]
The play was revived in 1998 at theOld Vic Theatre in London, directed again by Peter Hall and produced byKim Poster. Starring in the play wereMichael Sheen as Mozart,David Suchet as Salieri, Cindy Katz as Constanze andDavid McCallum as Joseph II. The play subsequently transferred to theMusic Box Theatre, New York City, where it ran for 173 performances (15 December 1999 until 14 May 2000), and received Tony Award nominations for Best Revival and Best Actor in a Play (for Suchet's Salieri).[17]
In July 2006, theLos Angeles Philharmonic presented a production of portions from the latest revision of the play at theHollywood Bowl.Neil Patrick Harris starred as Mozart,Kimberly Williams-Paisley as Constanze Mozart, andMichael York as Salieri.Leonard Slatkin conducted the Philharmonic Orchestra.[18]Rupert Everett played Salieri in a production at the refurbishedChichester Festival Theatre from 12 July through 2 August 2014.[19] The cast includedJoshua McGuire as Mozart,Jessie Buckley as Constanze andJohn Standing as Count Orsini-Rosenberg.Simon Jones played Joseph II.Peter Shaffer attended the play at the closing performance.
The play was revived at the National Theatre in London in a new production directed by Michael Longhurst, from October 2016 to March 2017.[20] It starredLucian Msamati as Salieri alongsideAdam Gillen as Mozart,Karla Crome as Constanze,Hugh Sachs as Count Orsini-Rosenberg and Tom Edden as Joseph II, accompanied with a live orchestra by theSouthbank Sinfonia. The production sold out with rave reviews and returned to the Olivier Theatre at the NT with Msamati and Gillen reprising the roles of Salieri and Mozart from February to 24 April 2018, again with rave reviews.[21][22]
The play was performed at theEstates Theatre, whereDon Giovanni made its premier in 1787, and where part of the 1984 film was shot, in 2017 for the first time in English in the Czech Republic, directed by Guy Roberts.[23]Amadeus was directed byJavad Molania in Tehran in March 2018 at Hafez Hall.[24][25][26] The play was directed byIşıl Kasapoğlu [tr] in Turkey in January/February 2020 at Uniq Hall Theatre, Istanbul.[27] A new production, scheduled for December 2022 at theSydney Opera House, was announced in July 2022 withMichael Sheen as Salieri andRahel Romahn as Mozart.[28][29] Sheen received Best Performer in a Play at the 2023 BroadwayWorld Australia - Sydney Awards for his Salieri.[30]
In 1983,BBC Radio 3 aired an audio version directed by Peter Hall which starred the original cast of his National Theatre production. The cast included:
This radio production was re-broadcast on 2 January 2011 as part of Radio 3'sGenius of Mozart season.[32] To celebrate Mozart's 250th birthday in 2006,BBC Radio 2 broadcast an adaptation by Neville Teller of Shaffer's play in eight fifteen-minute episodes directed by Peter Leslie Wilde and narrated byF. Murray Abraham as Salieri.[33] This version was re-broadcast 24 May – 2 June 2010 onBBC Radio 7.
The 1984 film adaptation won theAcademy Award for Best Picture. In total, the film won eight Academy Awards. It starredF. Murray Abraham as Salieri (winning theOscar for Best Actor for his performance),Tom Hulce as Mozart (also nominated for Best Actor) andElizabeth Berridge as Constanze. The play was thoroughly reworked by Shaffer and the film's director,Miloš Forman, with scenes and characters not found in the play.[34] While the focus of the play is primarily on Salieri, the film goes further into developing the characters of both composers.
In November 2022, it was announced thatJoe Barton would be adaptingAmadeus into a television series for Sky.[35] It will be directed byJulian Farino and Alice Seabright. On February 20, 2024, it was announcedWill Sharpe would play Mozart,[36] withPaul Bettany announced as Salieri,[37] and Gabrielle Creevy as Constanze.[38]
Immerhin dirigierte Salieri am 17. April 1791 ... wahrscheinlich auch Mozarts g-Moll-Sinfonie ...[After all, Salieri conducted on 17 April 1791 ... probably alsoMozart's G minor Symphony ...]
| Biography | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Music |
| ||
| Family |
| ||
| Influences | |||
| Related | |||
| Operas |
|
|---|---|
| Instrumental |
|
| Sacred |
|
| Vocal | |
| Portrayals | |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
