Word: salieri
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...dramatically arresting or emotionally compelling than the previous two plays. In a threadbare season, it nonetheless sheds the glow of Joseph's coat of many colors. This time Shaffer focuses on two contenders on the treacherous fields of artistic fame and glory. Both are composers. One is Antonio Salieri (Ian McKellen), a man who achieved phenomenal musical renown at the royal court of Vienna in the late 18th and early 19th centuries...
...other is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Tim Curry), who may be called a man or an immortal. We first meet Salieri on the day of his attempted suicide, when, with a twisted senile smirk, he begs the audience for absolution...
...claims to have poisoned Mozart years before. Beethoven reported this unsubstantiated charge in an entry of his conversation book of 1824. More pertinently, Salieri confesses to the envy that breeds malice when a mediocre talent meets a transcendent genius. In editing and reshaping his own text for Broadway, Shaffer makes jealousy a key factor in Salieri's persistent savaging of the hard-pressed Mozart in his attempts to secure court posts and paying pupils...
...this and other points - including a new scene concerning the premiere of The Magic Flute, which Salieri tried to thwart - the New York production is at variance, not always wisely, with the original production at London's National Theater...
...story proceeds in flashback us ing Salieri as narrator. The device impedes the dynamics of the play and some times makes the Viennese court seem like a cynically corrupted version of Grover's Corners. Early on, when Salieri is 16, he kneels in prayer and makes a Faustian compact with God. He vows to excel in virtue, magnify his talents and live his life as a tribute to his creator if only God will grant him fame...