by Annette

Created on: August 08, 2011   Last Updated: August 09, 2011

Peter Shaffer’s recollection of the life and times of the very gifted composer, Amadeus Wolfgang Mozart and his rival, the court composer Antonio Salieri, might not always be factually correct, but it makes for a very entertaining hour or two.

Shaffer’s play Amadeus has been performed successfully in the West End and on Broadway. In 1984 it was adapted for the big screen and awed audiences around the world.

The play itself underwent a series of metamorphosis and even after its success in the West End, Shaffer made substantial changes before it premiered on Broadway.

Shaffer skilfully initiates the circular structure of the play with an ailing and delusional Salieri raging against God. It is quickly established as a Memory play where Salieri’s recall of his life and that of Mozart’s provides the necessary information to set the scene in eighteenth century Vienna. It also sets the tone of Salieri’s rage against God in which Mozart is actually a mere instrument. While Salieri is a great composer in his own right, it is Mozart who got all the recognition and fame. Mozart’s music is pure, divine and heavenly exactly what Salieri sought for himself from God. He made an agreement with God and now God gave the divine music to the vulgar creature Mozart

The main theme focuses on the rivalry between Mozart and Salieri. Mozart is portrayed as a crude and ignorant young man who doesn’t fit the image Salieri had of the “Wunderkind” he expected to meet. This realisation and disappointment shape the foundation for the rest of the play and the assumption that Salieri was responsible for the death of Mozart. Thematically the rivalry is far more evident from Salieri than from the character of Mozart. Though Mozart makes fun of Salieri’s compositions he seems oblivious as to who and what Salieri represents. Salieri on the other hand is portrayed as the jealous older man who believes Mozart doesn’t deserve his fame.

Through very clever manipulation and devious conniving Salieri creates a situation where Mozart becomes completely dependent on him. In the last scenes of the play, it is Salieri who helps Mozart to complete the requisitioned Requiem just minutes before Mozart dies.

The man in the mask who at the end of the play requests Mozart to write a Requiem is believed to be Salieri or someone sent by Salieri. This masked man is also symbolically connected to Mozart’s deceased father through the mask. With his wife Constance away and Mozart ill and starving from hunger, the appearance of the masked man adds to his anguish, which ultimately drove him to insanity.

In the opening scene of the play, Salieri plays a few tunes to test the priest’s knowledge of his music. It is, however, only when he plays Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik that the priest recognises the music. Even though Salieri got rid of Mozart, he still dwells in Mozart’s shadow and will always be the mediocre one.

Learn more about this author, Annette.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.