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Amadeus

Amadeus is a famous fable with Mozart, Father Vogler and Salieri as the main characters used to illustrate a point about talent. The play in view was titled “Amadeus” which means “to be loved by God”. God’s love is in this case being a composer of the greatest talent. So the first scene from the play that aim choosing is the one where, Salieri makes a deal with God to be the greatest composer of all time, (it seems to be going great for a while for him), only to be undermined by Mozart of whom he thought was not a good person and not worthy of God’s love. In his words

“Whilst my father prayed earnestly to God to protect commerce, I would offer up secretly the proudest prayer a boy could think of. Lord, make me a great composer! Let me celebrate your glory through music - and be celebrated myself! Make me famous through the world, dear God! Make me immortal! After I die let people speak my name forever with love for what I wrote! In return I vow I will give you my chastity - my industry, my deepest humility, and every hour of my life. And I will help my fellow man all I can. Amen and amen!”

The point of the fable or what Salieri did not realize in this play is that one cannot be a great composer just because one wants to, that is not how God works. The play puts much more emphasis on Salieri’s relationship with God. In the hands of great actor, the role of Salieri is a tour de force. He not only has to play the part, but he also serves as narrator, switching roles on a dime between young Salieri and old Salieri. As far as the lighting of the play is considered since the overall genre of the play is musical, but the lighting is kept dark with a lot of Shadows whereas a dim light can be seen at a distance. The shadows in the background of the play give viewers a hint as to the gloomy and depressed character of the man hidden in the darkness which is not like the traits of a good musical. The dim light at the end of the stage shows that happiness in life is very confined and appears for a small minuscule of time. However, since most of the characters of the play are dramatic and unsavory, their character is highlighted by the eerie darkness devouring the entire scenery. A little and faded amount of lighting assists the onlookers to think of the plot as troublesome and uneven which get clearer and clearer as the play progresses.

The second scene I chose is the scene of Mozart’s death which is marvelous in my opinion as it treats Mozart’s death much more powerfully than the original written play. We don’t see the pauper’s grave or the lime dust thrown on top of the corpses. In the production I saw, two servants came in, lifted him up and onto a table and then dumped him off the back of the stage. One can hear the actor’s body slide and hit with a thump, like throwing out the trash. It was powerful. In this regard on of the most powerful lines said by Mozart include “Forgive me.” As if he knew he was going to suffer. As far as the costumes are considered every main character of the story is seen wearing the 17th and 18th century clothes accustomed to every character in a fable. The incongruous costume is synchronous with the overall theme of the entire plot which is enlightened as a Shakespeare play. The characters are seen out of the house in dull clothes which may show a state of a troubled mind and highlight their vulnerability, hence it was unable to attract me since for such strong and empowering scenes; the characters must also be empowered with enabling clothes. Numerous props appear in the entire span of the plot in synchronization of the story of each character in the play giving the play a reality based touch. The overall cinematography of the play shows some contrast in sound and vision along with the sound effects to give the audience a fun filled experience.

References

Shaffer, P., & Forman, M. (1981). Amadeus (p. 108). Penguin.

Barth, K. (2003). Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Wipf and Stock Publishers.

Zegers, R. H., Weigl, A., & Steptoe, A. (2009). The death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: an epidemiologic perspective. Annals of internal medicine, 151(4), 274-278.