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Guest review by Tara Yonder

Sky’s Amadeus miniseries sets out to revive one of the most deliciously operatic stories ever told about artistic genius – the supposed rivalry between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri – for 21st-century viewers. This latest portrayal of the feud that never was, and the persistent myth that Salieri attempted to poison Mozart, comes from Peter Shaffer’s 1979 play ‘Amadeus’ (which itself was inspired by Pushkin’s 1830 play ‘Mozart and Salieri’), and subsequent acclaimed 1984 film of the same name, adapted from the stage play (Shaffer wrote the screenplay) and directed by Milos Forman.

I’m old enough to remember the debut of both the play and the film, and the hoo-har surrounding the film in particular, especially the casting of Tom Hulce as a punky, pink haired, potty-mouthed Mozart with an irritating high, cackling giggle. Critics were largely won over by the inspired casting, its rich emotional landscape and of course Mozart’s magnificent music. Music historians still criticse the film’s historical inaccuracies, but Shaffer never claimed it was intended as an authentic biography of Mozart, describing his play as a “fantasia on [a real-life] theme”.

Tom Hulce as Mozart in the 1984 film ‘Amadeus’

I loved the film ‘Amadeus’, and repeated viewings reveal greater depths. It’s a brilliant, beautifully-crafted film. Visually and aurally arresting, it combines humour and wit, absurdity and poignancy, tenderness and tragedy, and celebrates both Mozart’s genius and the exigencies of his life in late 18th-century Vienna.

The play was revived by the National Theatre in 2016 (to mark the death of Peter Shaffer that year). I saw it twice, and loved it, in particular the way the music and musicians came to the fore in a thrilling piece of complete ‘music-theatre’.

Adam Gillen at Mozart (National Theatre,
London, 2016)
Lucian Msamati as Salieri (National Theatre, London, 2016)

Sky’s five-part miniseries ‘Amadeus’, which dropped on 21 December, mostly proves that some legends are perhaps better left echoing in memory. The creators of this latest incarnation of the Mozart-Salieri myth clearly adore Shaffer’s play and Forman’s film, but admiration is perhaps not the same thing as inspiration. It doesn’t feel like the tribute it might have intended to be.

The problem isn’t that ‘Amadeus’ takes liberties with history; that controversy was there from the start – Shaffer was openly unapologetic about turning Salieri into a mediocrity driven mad by his proximity to genius, and Forman doubled down on this with visual extravagance and black humour. It’s rather than Sky’s version, stretching the narrative into 5 hour-long episodes, somehow finds less to say, padding out familiar scenes with ‘prestige-TV’ glamour and gloom, interlaced with dreary banality, especially in the script, rather than genuine dramatic tension.

True, it’s lavish and visually stunning – the costumes, the wigs, the grand settings (it was filmed in Hungary) – with that uber-high-res, hyper-real format which is now the norm in film and tv drama (see also ‘Black Doves and Giri/Haji’ – both directed by Joe Barton, co-creator of Sky’s ‘Amadeus’, – and ‘Rivals’).

Credit: Adrienn Szabo/Sky

Mozart’s genius is repeatedly asserted but hardly truly felt: we are told he is transcendent, but rarely allowed to actually experience that transcendence because there are so few examples (instead we have music by, amongst others, Jonny Greenwood, and Max Richter). What was shocking in the original play and film – the gleeful vulgarity, the blasphemous rage at God, the audacity of portraying divine talent as a cruel joke – here feels pedestrian, superficial or simply contrived. There are the obligatory gratuitously lewd scenes, and plenty of zeitgeisty swearing (though far less scatological than in the original play or Mozart’s own letters), but this adds little to the overall narrative. If it’s intended to shock, it never really lands.

Paul Bettany is well cast as Salieri, emotions simmering beneath an austere, thin-lipped surface, while Will Sharpe plays Mozart as childish and brilliant. The scenes between the two do have a crackle of real tension, and overall the series is confidently acted and staged, and undeniably ‘modern’.

But other aspects of the casting simply grate. There’s the ‘diverse casting’ we’ve come to expect from 21st-century tv/film drama, and while that may not matter in fiction, it feels clunky and inaccurate in the portrayal of real historical figures at a particular period in history (for example, women did not play in orchestras in the 18th century). And overall, it’s hard to feel empathy or connection with any of the characters (except perhaps Mozart’s long-suffering wife Constanze) so one never truly cares about their fortunes.

But the greatest heresy is against the music, which is strangely absent when it should be centre stage. Sure, there are excerpts, but while the music was omnipresent in the original play and film, providing a powerful narrative and character all of its own (in particular, the quotes from Mozart’s Requiem), there is simply not enough in this series. It becomes footnote to the main characters, and their egos and jealousy; thus, Mozart’s sublime pieces serve as background, rather than argument. ‘Amadeus’ is, first and foremost, about the music – music which should overwhelm the narrative, interrupt and challenge it, and impel the audience into the same state of awe that overwhelms Salieri.

Sky’s ‘Amadeus’ is technically accomplished, visually stunning, and intermittently entertaining. Watch it as one might ‘Rivals’ and it’s fun and unserious, the ideal drama for our narcissistic, unserious times, but in no way does this feel like a worthy tribute to the original play and film. And that’s a shame because it could have been a great opportunity to create fine drama on an obviously very large budget.

This remake is not that bad. It’s clearly well-intentioned, often intelligent, and occasionally arresting. But it forgets the crucial thing that made the story immortal and universally compelling: Mozart was not great because others envied him. He was great – and others envied him – because he made contact with something eternal and gave it voice.

Tara Yonder is a music lover, amateur pianist, and unashamed dilettante

Header image credit: Sky

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In Peter Shaffer’s play ‘Amadeus’, composer Antonio Salieri confronts and rages at the fact that “a boastful, lustful, smutty, infantile boy” can produce the most sublimely beautiful music. This tension between Mozart’s personality and his ability to create beautiful music is a central trope in the play. As audience, we share Salieri’s shock, and curiosity, yet we are also complicit in Mozart’s behaviour, laughing as he blows real and metaphoric raspberries at those around him, and weeping with delight and wonder when we hear his music.
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Adam Gillen at Mozart in the National Theatre’s revival of ‘Amadeus’ (photo Marc Brenner)
We want to believe, and hope, that those who create beautiful things – music, art, poetry – are also good, kind, beautiful people.
Why would God choose an obscene child to be His instrument? It was not to be believed! This piece had to be an accident. It had to be!
– Antonio Salieri/Amadeus/Peter Shaffer
Creative people are different. They can be emotional, highly-sensitive dreamers who see the world differently. They think outside the box,  are often outliers and risk-takers in a society filled with cautious conformists. They can be arrogant, self-absorbed and anti-social. Because we value and revere creative genius, we tend to excuse these people for their maverick tendency because it is seen as part and parcel of their creative being and drives their creative impulses. But when their actions and attitudes overstep our moral code, offend our sense of propriety or damage others, it can be difficult to reconcile their beautiful creative outpourings with their personality and behaviour.
We confront this tension – and moral panic – when we discover those who have supposedly devoted their lives to the creation and recreation of beauty are not nearly as pure nor good as we imagined they should be. Recent revelations about the unsavoury and deeply inappropriate behaviour of, for example, conductors Charles Dutoit and James Levine – two people highly acclaimed for their remarkable ability to bring wonderful music to life – present us with a dilemma: do we choose to stop listening to these people’s recordings because of what they’ve done, recordings made before their proclivities were made public? Does their behaviour negate the cultural value or beauty of their work? (well yes, because it can render them hypocrites and make us suspicious of their intentions). In this unpleasant scenario, we are placed in the difficult position of loving and/or respecting the art and despising the man behind the art because of what he did.
I listened earlier this evening to a recording of Poulenc’s first piano concerto conducted by Dutoit. I realised as I was listening I was trying to eradicate the idea of there being a conductor present on the recording at all, seeking refuge instead solely in the melody crafted by the composer.
– Jon Jacob/Thoroughly Good
Can we ever listen again without prejudice?
Fortunately, Peter Shaffer’s portrayal of Mozart is highly fictionalised. Unfortunately, talented people do terrible things. Sometimes, their fame or position, or the environment in which they work encourages or disguises such behaviour, or those around them choose to overlook it. Sadly, the revelations about Dutoit and Levine are probably just the tip of a very dirty iceberg.