Amadeus Made Classical Music Hot--Based on One of the Great Rumors of Music History

Rating: 10/10 (25 July 2008)

In recent decades, classical music has lost much of its appeal in the United States. Its reputation among young people is that it is stodgy, high-brow, and boring. But in the midst of this perceived dormancy, Paul Shaffer and Milos Forman decided on another tactic: using the power of cinema to release the power, drama and excitement of classical music. Their answer was AMADEUS, a semi-fictionalized account of the opera scene in Vienna, Austria, during the late 18th century. Although many of the finer details are fictional, the film captures a larger historical picture of the exhilarating atmosphere of the late 18th-century. At the time, the arts were climbing toward a pinnacle in Europe, and Amadeus shows how music played an unrivaled role in high culture.
At the center of the film are two historical figures who were the most dominant musicians in Vienna in the late 1700's: Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The former was possibly the most popular, the most financially successful, and the most beloved composer of his day. He held the highest positions in music, including the coveted Imperial Kappellmeister, which he held for 36 years. And now most of his accomplishments and compositions are all but forgotten outside of musicological circles. The latter figure was ill-mannered and childish--an alcoholic and a spend thrift. He received only modicum pay for mediocre posts, never attaining the kind of notoriety in his lifetime as Salieri. And he died at the young age of 35. And yet his half-dozen or so operas along with many of his symphonies, concertos, masses, and chamber works are now regarded as some of the greatest music ever composed. His name has become synonymous with music itself, along with Beethoven and Bach.
The play and movie by Schaffer is based on a few sources: a smaller work called "Mozart and Salieri" by Alexander Pushkin, the memoirs by Da Ponte, who wrote several Mozart librettos, and a strange legend passed down in musical circles. The legend says that Salieri confessed to Beethoven that he had in fact murdered Mozart.(Beethoven moved to Vienna the year following Mozart's death in 1791 and studied under Haydn and then under Salieri.) There is much dispute among musicologists concerning the validity of the legend, as well as the relationship between Salieri and Mozart. There is evidence that Salieri and Mozart collaborated on several projects. Simultaneously, there were intense rivalries between composers at the time, each trying to win royal favor which would turn into financial support for future projects.
Although the legitimacy of this legend has never been substantiated, the movie is a drama characterizing Salieri as a musician who recognizes and becomes jealous of the genius of Mozart. He blames God that he was denied the talent bequeathed on a much lower order of primate, mainly Mozart. Salieri then tries to thwart Mozart's career, fearing that Mozart's genius will eclipse his own reputation. And then, Salieri conceives a hideous plan...
The entire film is a confessional flashback in which the older Salieri, played with superb subtlety by F. Murray Abraham in an Oscar-winning performance, tells the story of the decade in which he and Mozart premiered their operas in Vienna in the 1780's. His confession is to a priest after a failed suicide attempt, presumably because of his guilt surrounding the death of Mozart. Unlike the coolly refined Salieri, Mozart, played by Tom Hulce in an Oscar-caliber performance, is a giggling undisciplined adolescent who avoids most of his responsibilities, except for his music. But the fact of Mozart's undisciplined attitude toward his life only infuriates Salieri all the more.
As much as the characters, the other star of the show is the music. Amadeus chronicles several of Mozart's most important operas, including The Abduction from the Seraglio, The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and The Magic Flute. The highlights of the operas alone are well worth the price of admission. There are even moments explaining how Mozart wrote music in which it seems music "came" to him, almost dream-like, and he would write it down as if he was taking dictation. And the film also includes a couple of compositions by Salieri.
The movie is an absolute triumph of cinema, combining all the best elements of a bygone era: the costumes, the architecture, the sets, the characters, and the music. As a side-note, the film was shot in Prague where several Mozart operas, particularly Don Giovanni and the Marriage of Figaro were huge triumphs. There has never been a better movie about classical music, but I hope there will be one to at least equal the spectacle that is Amadeus.