“Amadeus” argues that every great artist needs a nemesis
Drake, who just dropped three albums on a single day for some reason, has plenty of fans compared to Salieri, who never attained Mozart’s notoriety. At the end of his life, which is where “Amadeus” begins, Salieri views that as God’s great joke. (Starz) Paul Bettany in “Amadeus.” In his prime, Salieri was a solid songsmith, popular enough to secure a gig as court composer to Emperor Joseph II in Vienna. But Mozart’s genius obliterates Salieri’s limited talent so utterly that the elder musician is bewitched by it. Following Mozart’s successful debut at court, Salieri cozies up to him and pretends to aid his cause. Quietly, though, Salieri sets about destroying him. What most people don’t realize about the “Amadeus” version of Mozart’s story is that historians posit it is almost entirely fictional. Shaffer’s script was inspired by Alexander Pushkin’s 1830 drama, “Mozart and Salieri,” which Pushkin spun from rumors circulating in the wake of Mozart’s death. Pushkin’s text eventually became the libretto that Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov employed in his opera of the same name. …
