Sky’s the limit for Amadeus
NewsMessage from the satellite broadcaster:
Sky have today announced that acclaimed writer of Giri/Haji and BAFTA-winning Sky Original series The Lazarus Project Joe Barton, Emmy-nominated and BAFTA-winning actor Will Sharpe (Giri/Haji, The White Lotus S2) and director Julian Farino (Giri/Haji) are to reunite in a new Sky Original limited series Amadeus. The series, written by Barton and produced by Two Cities Television, in association with Sky Studios, will see Sharpe take on the titular role of one of the greatest musical virtuosos of all time – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Deftly reimagined from Peter Shaffer’s award-winning stage play, Barton’s adaptation of Amadeus expands and interrogates the mythic rivalry, promising a corrupting symphony of jealousy, ambition and genius. Set within the musical hub of bustling Vienna at the end of the 18th century, twenty-five-year-old Amadeus arrives in the city no longer a child and determined to carve his own path. Recently unemployed and without the management of his father, Amadeus finds an unlikely ally in a young singer who will become his wife, fiery Constanze Weber Mozart. Her connections help bring him into the orbit of the court composer Antonio Salieri, setting the three of them on a collision course that will ultimately define their lives and their legacies for years to come.
Sounds promising. Will be looking forward to viewing this.
“O bene bene o male male” we say in Italy…
I’m beginning to think some of our creative talent is seeing potential in classical music…it has struck out with Tar and Maestro, and the American Symphony doco went nowhere. Maybe this time?
On the other hand, it’s Sky.
Again, the silly and entirely fabricated story of Salieri being envious and trying to undermine Mozart. Extensive historical research has convincingly shown that nothing like that was the case, S and M went along quite well. The Shaffer play and thus, the rather trivial movie (with the much too white wigs) on the basis of the play, give a totally false impression.
Also it appears that Salieri was a quite good composer in his own right and deserved the success he had. And then, Vienna was not prepared to suddenly have a genius in its midst, and who would? Geniusses always come entirely unexpected. If not, it could not be genius at all.
The way in which classical music is used as cinematographic entertainment is almost without exception an impossible endeavor doomed to falsify any reality that has come down to us.
Have a look at Meeting Venus, about a production of Tannhauser. Rang a lot of bells for me — and besides was a very good watch, and a decent listen.
Probably the only movie (peripherally) about classical music that was a great success, in the modern era, was Diva.
Doesn’t it all go back to Pushkin’s Mozart and Salieri (1830)?
As a film, Amadeus is brilliant, as a musicological study, not so much.
It’s a *play*, John, you know, a work of fiction, not a history book. It is also brilliant. As to why we need a remake of a definitive film, one of the greatest ever made, that’s another question altogether. When they suggest a “reimagining”, I can’t help but suspect it’ll be a woke retelling of the story wherein the person responsible for Mozart’s success and genius is made out to be Constanze. Just you watch. I almost certainly won’t.
Salieri is just a name. The story is about ingenuity vs. mediocrity. Thus ʻSalieriʼ ends the Amadeus film proclaiming “I speak for all mediocrities in the world. I am their champion. I am their patron saint”.
Is that a fancy way of saying “were doing a remake” ?
It’s not a remake: those generally refer to new versions of old films (e.g. A Star is Born has had 4, The Great Gatsby at least 3). Nobody would call the TV series M*A*S*H a “remake” of the Altman film.
Given Mozart’s enthusiasm for word-play, it is ironic that he is today universally associated with the middle name “Amadeus”. In his notes for the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s program book in the mid-1970s, Michael Steinberg pointed out that he never used that name except in jest, signing the occasional letter “Wolfgangus Amadeus Mozartus”, and by the late 1770’s he consistently referred to himself as “Wolfgang Amadè Mozart”.
Wasn’t he actually christened Theophilius but he preferred to translate the name ?
I read somewhere it was Gottlieb. It would be interesting to know.
It was actually the Greek, Theophilus. Gottlieb is the German translation which he occasionally used when touring, Amadeus is the Latin. Amade was his preferred version though.
I think this show is going to be awful 🙁
It wss originally Gottlieb. Amadeus means the same thing: “loved by God”.
“Interogates” – heaven help us! I think I’ll stick with Peter Shaffer (and Miloš Forman).
Let’s hope it’s better written than this overloaded news release.
When are they going to do a biopic of the celebrated Italian opera composer Zandonai?
Great stuff; do the Maestro proud!
They’re going to cast a black actor as Salieri, aren’t they? It’s already been done. And Constanze will probably be that Indian girl from “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Their Mozart in the form of Sharpe is already distinctly Asian. Oy vey.
The National Theatre production of Amadeus a few years ago had a black actor – Lucien Msamati – playing Salieri and he was absolutely superb. Perhaps you should watch less GB News, stop seeing everything through the prism of how “woke” it is, and just maybe suspend a bit of disbelief. Would we want to be without Leontyne Price’s Tosca? Or Jessye Norman’s Sieglinde? I don’t see the difference.