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Amadeus the Articles in This Study Guide Are Not Meant to Mirror Or Interpret Any Productions at the Utah Shakespeare Festival

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Amadeus the Articles in This Study Guide Are Not Meant to Mirror Or Interpret Any Productions at the Utah Shakespeare Festival Insights A Study Guide to the Utah Shakespeare Festival Amadeus The articles in this study guide are not meant to mirror or interpret any productions at the Utah Shakespeare Festival. They are meant, instead, to bean educational jumping-off point to understanding and enjoying the plays (in any production at any theatre) a bit more thoroughly. Therefore the stories of the plays and the interpretative articles (and even characters, at times) may differ dramatically from what is ultimately produced on the Festival’s stages. The Study Guide is published by the Utah Shakespeare Festival, 351 West Center Street; Cedar City, UT 84720. Bruce C. Lee, communications director and editor; Phil Hermansen, art director. Copyright © 2009, Utah Shakespeare Festival. Please feel free to download and print The Study Guide, as long as you do not remove any identifying mark of the Utah Shakespeare Festival. For more information about Festival education programs: Utah Shakespeare Festival 351 West Center Street Cedar City, Utah 84720 435-586-7880 www.bard.org. Cover photo: David Ivers as Antonio Salieri in Amadeus, 2015. Contents Information on the Play Synopsis 4 Characters 5 About the Playwright:Amadeus Peter Shaffer 6 Scholarly Articles on the Play Amadeus: Talent, Envy, and God 8 Utah Shakespeare Festival 3 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880 The Story of the Play As this memory play opens in November 1823, whispers and rumors are rampant that Antonio Salieri has admitted to murdering Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart thirty-two years prior. Now an elderly man in a wheelchair, Salieri speaks directly to the audience and begins to explain the story behind the rumors. As a young man, Salieri desired to be a famous composer and made a bargain with God that if this were granted he would dedicate his life to honoring Him through music. The story then flashes back to 1781 when Salieri is a successful court composer in the court of Emperor Joseph II of Austria. He has not met Mozart but has heard of him and his extraordinary music and is thrilled to learn he in Vienna for a performance. However, his first encounter with Mozart is an accidental eavesdropping on a profane, private moment between him and his fiancée, Constanze Weber. Salieri avoids meeting Mozart but eventually makes his acquaintance in the emperor’s court where his opinion of him is sealed; Salieri cannot reconcile the man whom he calls the “filthy creature” and the “absolute beauty” of his God-given musical genius. He pleads with God that he, Salieri, may be His conduit. He cannot believe that Mozart would be chosen instead. After a lengthy struggle with his own mediocrity, Salieri forsakes his Maker and vows to destroy Mozart as a way to wage war on God. As the story continues, Salieri pretends to be Mozart’s ally, when behind his back he does his utmost to ruin his reputation and any chances for success. When Constanze comes to him for help, he tries to seduce her, then humiliates her and throws her out. Mozart con- tinues to produce inspired work, but to less and less aristocratic appreciation. The common people adore him, but his means of earning a living dwindle. Eventually, both men have fallen: Salieri has become shameful, manipulative, unfeeling and bitter; Mozart is penniless, ill, disheartened and an alcoholic. But the questions still remain: Did Salieri really murder Mozart? Are the rumors and his confession true? 4 Utah Shakespeare Festival 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880 Characters: Amadeus Antonio Salieri: Court composer and later imperial kapellmeister to Joseph II, emperor of Austria, Salieri is ambitious and has promised to dedicate his life and talents to God in return for fame as a composer. He found success in the emperor’s court and is part of a faction of Italians who advise the emperor on cultural matters. However, once Mozart arrives on the scene and Salieri hears his exquisite work, he feels betrayed by God and lets his feelings of mediocrity, jealousy, and bitterness consume him. He vows to destroy Mozart as way to get back at God. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: A child prodigy from Salzburg, Austria, and a genius com- poser, Mozart is seeking a position in the emperor’s court. He is extravagant, arrogant, juvenile, foul-mouthed, and impulsive in social and political situations, but creates un- believably remarkable music. He eventually loses support in court, and, unable to secure a steady income, becomes a poverty-stricken alcoholic and struggles to survive. But he always remains true to his music. Constanze (Stanzi) Weber: Mozart’s wife whom he married against his father’s wishes, Weber loves and supports him in his work through every humiliation and hardship. Though both are cavalier and juvenile, she is more responsible and practical and even willing to sacrifice herself for him. Joseph II: Emperor of Austria and brother of Marie Antoinette, Joseph II enjoys and sup- ports Mozart’s music but is ultimately persuaded by Salieri and others at court to cut him off. Count Johann Kilian von Strack: Chamberlain of the Imperial Chamber, von Strack is a stiff and proper court official. Count Franz Orsini-Rosenberg: Plump and supercilious, Orsini-Rosenberg is director of the Imperial Opera. Baron Gottfried van Swieten: Prefect of the Imperial Library, van Swieten is cultivated and serious. He is known as “Lord Fugue” and is ardent Freemason. Kapellmeister Guiseppe Bonno: The Royal choral director Two “Venticelli”: Gossips who work for Salieri and provide him with information on Mo- zart’s private affairs Salieri’s Valet and Cook Teresa Salieri: Wife of Salieri Katherina Cavalieri: Salieri’s promising pupil who has affairs with both Salieri and Mozart Major-Domo: A servant of a prominent baroness Priest Servants and Citizens of Vienna Utah Shakespeare Festival 5 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880 About the Playwright: Peter Shaffer By Rachelle Hughes Playwright Peter Levin Shaffer took on the human psyche through humor, satire, and drama in his portfolios of plays produced during his career. Many of his plays tackle the grittier side of mental struggles, and his award-winning Amadeus is no exception as he tells one version of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s life. There were whisperings in Mozart’s time that the boy genius had a jealous rival in court composer Salieri. There were rumors of revenge and poison, and, in the play Amadeus, Shaffer capitalizes on this drama as he tells the story as it could have been of a musical genius who in Shaffer’s depiction could be both charming and childlike, genius and immature, and, to his demise, plagued by one who was driven murderous with envy. Born in Liverpool, England on May 15, 1926 to Orthodox Jewish parents Jack and Reka Shaffer, Peter Shaffer may or may not have grappled with the dark side of his own emotions, but he most certainly ran across people who did in his varied life leading up to his career as a playwright. In an article in Transatlantic Review Shaffer stated “All art is autobiographical inas- much as it refers to personal experience” (“Peter Shaffer: Biography, Critical Essays,” Enotes, http://www.enotes.com/topcis/peter-shaffer). He, however, admits much of that experience came from observing. Shaffer did not find his playwriting groove immediately. Whisperings of his future career began while editing the Cambridge University college magazine. He earned his degree in history in 1950. The history degree would certainly help him flesh out his later plays that often relied heavily on historical research. His first literary works, however were a team effort with his twin brother, Anthony. Their first mystery novel, Woman in the Wardrobe (1951), was published under the pen name Peter Anthony. They collaborated on two additional novels under the name Peter Anthony, How Doth the Little Crocodile (1952) and the Withered Murder (1956). The last two novels were later picked up by publishing house Macmillan. Anthony went on to be a playwright in his own right and both he and Peter saw success in their shared love of writing. During these first years of writing, Shaffer was trying his hands at different types of work after he moved to New York in 1951. After a brief time as a salesperson in a Doubleday book- store he obtained a job in acquisitions with the New York Public Library. In 1954 he returned to London to work with the music publisher Boosey and Hawkes. Finally in 1955, with the success of his teleplay The Salt Land and radio play The Prodigal Father he settled on playwrit- ing as a career. Turns out it was a good career move for Shaffer. His plays have seen success on both sides of the Atlantic. His first work for the stage, The Five Finger Exercise (1959) garnered accolades in both London and New York, winning the London Evening Standard Drama Award and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Foreign Play of the Season in 1960. He continued to build on his playwriting successes with the one-act comedies The Private Ear and The Public Eyes, and The Royal Hunt of the Sun. With Equus, the story of a disillusioned stable boy who blinded six horses, he reached new heights as the play won the Tony Award for the Best Play of the 1974-1975 season along with the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Drama Critics Award. Its Broadway run of 1207 performanc- es was matched in London where it had a run of over 1000 performances.
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