Advertisement
Stay in the Loop
BSR publishes on a weekly schedule, with an email newsletter every Wednesday and Thursday morning. There’s no paywall, and subscribing is always free.
"Amadeus' at the Wilma
Dan Rottenberg
Salieri vs. Mozart vs. Shaffer
DAN ROTTENBERG
In Peter Shaffer’s conception, the composers Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart are creative and temperamental opposites whose paths cross at a time in the 1780s when each envies the other’s talents. Mozart is a musical genius whose immortal melodies leap effortlessly from his brain onto the page without the slightest revision or correction, but he lacks the personal skills to make friendships, a living or a successful marriage. (“Music is easy,” he remarks. “It’s marriage that’s hard.”) Salieri, by contrast, is a consummate court politician whose efforts have brought him comfort and influence, but above all he covets the immortality that he knows will accrue to Mozart.
Mozart suffers the frustration of the genius whose transcendence goes unrecognized by his contemporaries, with the sole ironic exception of the jealous Salieri; Salieri’s affliction is that he alone perceives Mozart’s genius and knows he can never replicate it himself.
Are these men blessed by God (literally, Amadeus) or cursed by God? That is Shaffer’s question. The mediocre Salieri believes he has cut a deal with God: He will lead a virtuous life in exchange for the ability to compose immortal music. That God has granted this blessing instead to the boorish Mozart mystifies and outrages Salieri. (In this conception, Mozart is to music what Ty Cobb was to baseball or Mikhail Baryshnikov is to dance: an immortal in his chosen field, and a jerk in all other respects.)
A deal with God, or with the devil?
In fact, of course, God has it just right: The genius is blessed with otherworldliness and cursed with a single-mindedness that renders him incapable of coping with the here and now; the mediocre man is so preoccupied with worldly things that his brain has no room for the ethereal.
Salieri recognizes, correctly, that nothing in life comes without its price tag. He believes he must forego gluttony and lust in exchange for genius. In fact Salieri has made a deal not with God but with the devil, for he lacks the loving spirit and generosity without which virtue is useless. Salieri's “virtue” is more like the narrow virtue of Victor Hugo’s Inspector Javert, who spends years hounding the goodhearted Jean Valjean for the crime of stealing a loaf of bread. The irony of Amadeus is that this forgotten Italian composer has indeed been rescued from obscurity and granted a kind of immortality— not through his musical talent but through Peter Shaffer’s talented pen.
Let me stipulate before I proceed any further that the Wilma’s Amadeus is a compelling production of a stimulating work, one that provokes the mind while delighting the eye, the ear and the soul. Director Jiri Zizka skillfully exploits a first-rate cast, a set by Robert Pyzocha and lighting by Jerold Forsyth to create a pipedream vision of Vienna under Joseph II. As Salieri, Dean Nolen manages the difficult trick of making mediocrity interesting. (By contrast, an outright evil role like Iago is a breeze.) Drew Hirshfield as Mozart and Mary Rasmussen as his wife Constanze are engagingly immature. The show’s composer, an up-and-coming young tunesmith named W.A. Mozart, bears watching as well.
Why this constant tinkering?
To the extent that I have a problem with this production, it’s not with the Wilma but with the playwright. Amadeus was first performed in London in 1979. It made its Broadway debut in 1980, received a film version in 1984 and a revival in 1998. With each of its incarnations— including the current Wilma production— Peter Shaffer has revised the script. My question is: Why?
Mozart (at least in Shaffer’s telling) was so godly that his first draft was also his final draft. Instead of endlessly rewriting his past triumphs, he moved on to new ones. Amadeus was a great play to begin with. Why this constant tinkering?
At three hours, this Amadeus runs longer than The Marriage of Figaro; even I, who love the play, got squirmy during the last 30 minutes. Yet for all its length, this version’s Salieri lacks the intriguing complexity of the film characterization, as portrayed by F. Murray Abraham. In that version, Salieri’s feelings toward Mozart are mixed: He’s insanely jealous on the one hand; but on the other, as a professional composer, he welcomes the creative opportunity to work alongside the dying Mozart on his Requiem. Those scenes don’t appear in the Wilma production.
If you watch Citizen Kane too many times, you will doubtless find flaws that could stand improvement. But since it's already the greatest film ever made, why bother? Ultimately an artist strives for great art— not for perfection.
Shaffer is obviously an intelligent fellow. So what is the point of his constant revisions of this splendid work? Are they his way of telling us, “I’m a Salieri, not a Mozart”?
To view responses, click here.
DAN ROTTENBERG
In Peter Shaffer’s conception, the composers Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart are creative and temperamental opposites whose paths cross at a time in the 1780s when each envies the other’s talents. Mozart is a musical genius whose immortal melodies leap effortlessly from his brain onto the page without the slightest revision or correction, but he lacks the personal skills to make friendships, a living or a successful marriage. (“Music is easy,” he remarks. “It’s marriage that’s hard.”) Salieri, by contrast, is a consummate court politician whose efforts have brought him comfort and influence, but above all he covets the immortality that he knows will accrue to Mozart.
Mozart suffers the frustration of the genius whose transcendence goes unrecognized by his contemporaries, with the sole ironic exception of the jealous Salieri; Salieri’s affliction is that he alone perceives Mozart’s genius and knows he can never replicate it himself.
Are these men blessed by God (literally, Amadeus) or cursed by God? That is Shaffer’s question. The mediocre Salieri believes he has cut a deal with God: He will lead a virtuous life in exchange for the ability to compose immortal music. That God has granted this blessing instead to the boorish Mozart mystifies and outrages Salieri. (In this conception, Mozart is to music what Ty Cobb was to baseball or Mikhail Baryshnikov is to dance: an immortal in his chosen field, and a jerk in all other respects.)
A deal with God, or with the devil?
In fact, of course, God has it just right: The genius is blessed with otherworldliness and cursed with a single-mindedness that renders him incapable of coping with the here and now; the mediocre man is so preoccupied with worldly things that his brain has no room for the ethereal.
Salieri recognizes, correctly, that nothing in life comes without its price tag. He believes he must forego gluttony and lust in exchange for genius. In fact Salieri has made a deal not with God but with the devil, for he lacks the loving spirit and generosity without which virtue is useless. Salieri's “virtue” is more like the narrow virtue of Victor Hugo’s Inspector Javert, who spends years hounding the goodhearted Jean Valjean for the crime of stealing a loaf of bread. The irony of Amadeus is that this forgotten Italian composer has indeed been rescued from obscurity and granted a kind of immortality— not through his musical talent but through Peter Shaffer’s talented pen.
Let me stipulate before I proceed any further that the Wilma’s Amadeus is a compelling production of a stimulating work, one that provokes the mind while delighting the eye, the ear and the soul. Director Jiri Zizka skillfully exploits a first-rate cast, a set by Robert Pyzocha and lighting by Jerold Forsyth to create a pipedream vision of Vienna under Joseph II. As Salieri, Dean Nolen manages the difficult trick of making mediocrity interesting. (By contrast, an outright evil role like Iago is a breeze.) Drew Hirshfield as Mozart and Mary Rasmussen as his wife Constanze are engagingly immature. The show’s composer, an up-and-coming young tunesmith named W.A. Mozart, bears watching as well.
Why this constant tinkering?
To the extent that I have a problem with this production, it’s not with the Wilma but with the playwright. Amadeus was first performed in London in 1979. It made its Broadway debut in 1980, received a film version in 1984 and a revival in 1998. With each of its incarnations— including the current Wilma production— Peter Shaffer has revised the script. My question is: Why?
Mozart (at least in Shaffer’s telling) was so godly that his first draft was also his final draft. Instead of endlessly rewriting his past triumphs, he moved on to new ones. Amadeus was a great play to begin with. Why this constant tinkering?
At three hours, this Amadeus runs longer than The Marriage of Figaro; even I, who love the play, got squirmy during the last 30 minutes. Yet for all its length, this version’s Salieri lacks the intriguing complexity of the film characterization, as portrayed by F. Murray Abraham. In that version, Salieri’s feelings toward Mozart are mixed: He’s insanely jealous on the one hand; but on the other, as a professional composer, he welcomes the creative opportunity to work alongside the dying Mozart on his Requiem. Those scenes don’t appear in the Wilma production.
If you watch Citizen Kane too many times, you will doubtless find flaws that could stand improvement. But since it's already the greatest film ever made, why bother? Ultimately an artist strives for great art— not for perfection.
Shaffer is obviously an intelligent fellow. So what is the point of his constant revisions of this splendid work? Are they his way of telling us, “I’m a Salieri, not a Mozart”?
To view responses, click here.
Sign up for our newsletter
All of the week's new articles, all in one place. Sign up for the free weekly BSR newsletters, and don't miss a conversation.
