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Amadeus
National Theatre at Home
PETER SCHAFFER’S acclaimed Amadeus provides an ecstatic crescendo to the National’s lockdown season online, with Michael Longhurst’s lavish production showing how the musical genius of Mozart affects profoundly and forever all who experience it.
But Schaffer’s principal focus is the devastation that engulfs the feted 18th-century Italian court composer Antonio Salieri when he encounters the young upstart Mozart.
It’s a theme with instant audience appeal. Not only does it trade on the mythology that surrounds Mozart and the time-honoured reverence for his music, it also taps into our identification with Salieri — an individual with thwarted ambitions who’s facing up to his own mediocrity.
In a play that could excel but never quite does, Schaffer nevertheless provides moments of dramatic magnificence, and this production is especially notable for the exquisite live music from Southbank Sinfonia, with a seamless integration of music and musicians into the busy Vienna scenes.
The play is driven by a superb performance from Lucian Msamati as the tormented Salieri, who confides in the audience with all the jealous rancour of a tormented Iago.
At war with God for denying him the genius he sees in Mozart, Salieri witnesses his proud trappings of power crumble to vacuity.
The bitterest blow of all is that he alone, in a court full of sycophants and philistines, fully recognises Mozart’s unparalleled brilliance.
It’s a theme worthy of Shakespeare, but there the comparison ends. The play has limitations, not least in the characterisation of Mozart, and it’s a shortcoming exacerbated by the way he is traditionally played as a pantomime buffoon.
Adam Gillen goes overboard in the role to make him histrionic and idiotic rather than empathetic and real. As a result, the final scenes — where he dies tragically at 35, depriving the world of all the music gathering in his head — are wasted. We don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
The play is hugely ambitious, with towering themes, the music tantalises, and Msamati makes a brilliant Salieri.
Yet while the production leaves an audience with much to contemplate, somewhere in writing this play, Schaffer lost his way to greatness. A pity.
Available free on YouTube until Thursday (July 23), youtube.com/watch?v=FaEP2zn4bRE.
