Whether there really was a poisonous professional rivalry between Mozart and Antonio Salieri, composer to the Imperial court in Vienna, seems less than likely, but the success of Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus, on both stage and screen, has convinced the world otherwise. In Shaffer’s view, we see a Salieri consumed with envy and jealous rage at the effortless brilliance of Mozart, who seemingly had access to a continual stream of divinely-inspired inspiration. Salieri, by contrast, would be remembered only as “the patron saint of mediocrities”.
Sky Atlantic’s adaptation, written by Joe Barton, adheres fairly closely to its source material, but inserts the additional characters of librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte and the author Alexander Pushkin, whose short play Mozart and Salieri prompted Shaffer to write Amadeus. There’s plenty to enjoy, not least its strength-in-depth cast.
Will Sharpe plays Mozart with a blend of reckless self-indulgence, sexual promiscuity and child-like enthusiasm, even if he doesn’t stretch to the manic extremes of Tom Hulce’s performance in Milos Forman’s 1984 movie (Hulce claimed he’d taken inspiration for Mozart’s crazed mood-swings from the combustible tennis brat John McEnroe). Gabrielle Creevy (pictured below) delivers a skilfully nuanced performance as his wife Constanze, somehow finding ways to cope with Mozart’s mad-genius lifestyle.
Paul Bettany (pictured above) imbues Salieri with coldly-calibrated malice, masking his murderous resentment behind a facade of professional decorum. Every time he seems to be offering Mozart praise or a helping hand, perhaps with a helpful word in the ear of Emperor Joseph II, he’s really just polishing up the knife under his cloak. Lighting and make-up can make Salieri’s face shift subtly from bland pleasantness to seething malignancy as he continues his campaign of undermining his yobbish but spectacularly brilliant rival.
The real Salieri enjoyed a successful career at the Viennese court and had his works performed all over Europe, even if he couldn’t match the scorching glare of Mozart’s genius, but in this incarnation we can feel how he’s being eaten alive from within. An image of him staring forlornly at a blank sheet of manuscript paper speaks volumes. In fairness, Mozart doesn’t help himself by telling Salieri that “maybe God doesn’t speak to you because you fucking bore him.”
There’s welcome light relief from Rory Kinnear as Emperor Joseph, even if it is a tiny bit reminiscent of Kinnear’s portrayal of boorish Prime Minister Nicol Trowbridge in The Diplomat. His Joseph is a bluff, authoritative sort of fellow, not accustomed to being contradicted, and his understanding of music is basic at best. After the premier of Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio, it is the Emperor’s opinion that it contained “too many notes”. Mozart’s impish retort – “which notes did you have in mind, Emperor?” – leaves him flummoxed. But he instinctively understands that Mozart’s gifts exist on a higher plane than any imagined competition.
Still, it’s not clear that converting the Amadeus story for TV was always in its best interests. Stretching the single continuous narrative of the play or film into a five-part series seems to suck some of the momentum out of it, even if it does offer scope for sampling Mozart’s music, including chunks of his best-known operas and his Requiem. As the Emperor Joseph was trying to warn us, more can often be less.
Amadeus premieres on Sky Atlantic and NOW on 21 December
Add comment