Most importantly, this production got around the problem of the play not being able to do what the movie did - i.e. use Mozart's and a bit of Salieri's actual music as soundtrack - by constantly having 20 musicians and six singers on stage along with the cast (sometimes in the background, sometimes prominently displayed) and incorporating the music where appropriate
Oh, that sounds REALLY neat.
Yeah, I....just don't like PS's Mozart, because I don't like the whole "the artist is a holy fool touched by God who is nothing but a human sized pen" (ahem) thing, and I grew up with my mom's music books and lectures around so I had a different impression of him than the pop-culture one from the start. One of the things that actually makes me angry about the pop depictions of Mozart and van Gogh and a lot of other artists is, they did a lot of work. They had the genius, yes indeed, but there were years and years of hard work that had to go along with the genius.
it's ironic Amadeus, either version, in order to pull off its central conflict and premise has to eliminate someone pretty important to the creation of operas - the librettist. Lorenzo da Ponte worked with both Mozart and Salieri, and Pierre Beaumarchais, the playwright on whose drama Figaro's Wedding is based, actually wrote the (original) libretto to the Salieri opera
Oh, that's really neat. And IIRC Mozart was nearly always writing for specific artists, too -- contemporary musicians have a big influence on composers, just like specific actors and directors do for playwrights (a big example I can think of, and about the only one on not enough coffee, is the long partnership of Tennessee Williams and Elia Kazan, or Laurette Taylor creating the role of Amanda in the Glass Menagerie).
no subject
Oh, that sounds REALLY neat.
Yeah, I....just don't like PS's Mozart, because I don't like the whole "the artist is a holy fool touched by God who is nothing but a human sized pen" (ahem) thing, and I grew up with my mom's music books and lectures around so I had a different impression of him than the pop-culture one from the start. One of the things that actually makes me angry about the pop depictions of Mozart and van Gogh and a lot of other artists is, they did a lot of work. They had the genius, yes indeed, but there were years and years of hard work that had to go along with the genius.
it's ironic Amadeus, either version, in order to pull off its central conflict and premise has to eliminate someone pretty important to the creation of operas - the librettist. Lorenzo da Ponte worked with both Mozart and Salieri, and Pierre Beaumarchais, the playwright on whose drama Figaro's Wedding is based, actually wrote the (original) libretto to the Salieri opera
Oh, that's really neat. And IIRC Mozart was nearly always writing for specific artists, too -- contemporary musicians have a big influence on composers, just like specific actors and directors do for playwrights (a big example I can think of, and about the only one on not enough coffee, is the long partnership of Tennessee Williams and Elia Kazan, or Laurette Taylor creating the role of Amanda in the Glass Menagerie).