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).
George Bernard Shaw wrote Eliza Doolittle specifically for Stella Patrick Campbell. Hugo von Hofmannsthal wrote Jedermann, modelled on the medieval Everyman plays, in close collaboration with and for Max Rheinhardt to produce. Good lord, Brecht, Mr. Verfremdungseffekt himself, is a terrific example for this: the US version of Galileo Galilei is specifically the result of him collaborating with Charles Laughton on an English version, see also here, and his life long partnership with Helene Weigel meant not one but two parts in Mother Courage were tailored to her (Katrin the mute daughter which was supposed to give Weigel a part she could play in countries she didn't speak the language of during their exile years, and the lead role afterwards in German theatre, which she indeed triumphed in). And of course Brecht went through his life with a whole entourage of collaborators, female and male, he half exploited, half inspired, in general.
Anyway, yes collaboration is the natural mode for any staged piece of art, musical or otherwise, and the whole idea of the artist as a lone genius who comes up with everything himself in isolation is a 19th century thing (not of 19th century reality, but of 19th romanticism in terms of the idea of genius), which still hangs on, and I'm as irritated about it as you are. This said, I think that since Shaffer wrote the film script after the play, he may have had some second thoughts, not to the central idea of genius but to how important it is to show that no matter how much talent you have, you need to WORK in order to make it bear fruit, because movie!Mozart is depicted being hard at work (especially in the second half where the pov shifts). We still don't get real life depiction of how collaborative this work was, but at least a hint because as opposed to the play, Schikaneder shows up as a character and we see his brand of vaudeville theatre as something Mozart responds to.
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George Bernard Shaw wrote Eliza Doolittle specifically for Stella Patrick Campbell. Hugo von Hofmannsthal wrote Jedermann, modelled on the medieval Everyman plays, in close collaboration with and for Max Rheinhardt to produce. Good lord, Brecht, Mr. Verfremdungseffekt himself, is a terrific example for this: the US version of Galileo Galilei is specifically the result of him collaborating with Charles Laughton on an English version, see also here, and his life long partnership with Helene Weigel meant not one but two parts in Mother Courage were tailored to her (Katrin the mute daughter which was supposed to give Weigel a part she could play in countries she didn't speak the language of during their exile years, and the lead role afterwards in German theatre, which she indeed triumphed in). And of course Brecht went through his life with a whole entourage of collaborators, female and male, he half exploited, half inspired, in general.
Anyway, yes collaboration is the natural mode for any staged piece of art, musical or otherwise, and the whole idea of the artist as a lone genius who comes up with everything himself in isolation is a 19th century thing (not of 19th century reality, but of 19th romanticism in terms of the idea of genius), which still hangs on, and I'm as irritated about it as you are. This said, I think that since Shaffer wrote the film script after the play, he may have had some second thoughts, not to the central idea of genius but to how important it is to show that no matter how much talent you have, you need to WORK in order to make it bear fruit, because movie!Mozart is depicted being hard at work (especially in the second half where the pov shifts). We still don't get real life depiction of how collaborative this work was, but at least a hint because as opposed to the play, Schikaneder shows up as a character and we see his brand of vaudeville theatre as something Mozart responds to.