Tyler Bingman
Sean Langenecker captures the naughty exuberance of Mozart.
Peter Shaffer’s play Amadeus begins with a confession. The elderly and sick composer Antonio Salieri looks to the audience to absolve him of his sins — covetousness, blasphemy, treachery, adultery, and maybe even the murder of his fellow composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. As the play unfolds, it is up to the audience to decide if Salieri’s behavior can be forgiven, or at least understood. This is a solid beginning of a tale of musical genius, jealousy, and betrayal, produced by Strollers Theatre on the Drury Stage of the Bartell Theatre, running through June 17.
In every art form there are artists who are technically proficient, and then those who seem to be blessed with genius. Not only do they create masterpieces beyond the accomplishments of anyone before them, they seem to do it with an ease that is astounding — even incomprehensible — to others in the field. This was the case for Mozart: The child prodigy was composing symphonies at age 8 and wrote operas such as Cosi Fan Tutte, The Magic Flute, The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni, as well as hundreds of concertos, quartets, sonatas, and liturgical pieces over his brief lifetime.
Salieri (played deftly by Matt Korda) is the prominent musician who recognizes that his abilities and his work will always pale in comparison to the crude youngster Mozart (exuberantly embodied by Sean Langenecker), even though he has devoted his life to his art. The realization is at first heartbreaking, then galvanizing, as Salieri battles with a God who seems to have given his greatest gift to the least noble recipient.
Told in flashbacks, Amadeus chronicles Mozart’s arrival in Vienna, his struggle to find students and patrons to support him, his unstable marriage, sexual conquests and the lewd, outrageous behavior that somehow accompanies his profound abilities in composing. As Mozart consistently shows up Salieri musically, we see the reserved court musician become more desperate to erase the young upstart from the world, ruin him financially and thwart his success.
As Mozart, Langenecker is delightful. All energy and absurdity, he completely inhabits an immature and impetuous “creature” who was exhibited as a freakishly talented musician throughout Europe during his childhood. He giggles, sings, jumps, writhes, rails and baby-talks his way through life, apologizing for his ridiculous behavior, but not for his prodigious talent. Langenecker’s mop of curly hair and his high pitched laugh accentuate the difference between Mozart and those who surround him. His haunted end is tragic, whether it was engineered by his rival or not.
As Salieri, Korda has a difficult task. He jumps back and forth in time, directly addressing the audience, and acting out his character’s metamorphosis from skeptical admirer to jealous adversary to obsessed villain. And he also narrates the entire play. A shortcoming in the script, the constant asides to explain everything happening onstage weigh down the play and muddle Salieri’s already complicated journey. They also seem to lengthen the already long production, which comes in at three hours with one intermission. Through all this, Korda has a focused intensity that moves the play forward. One wishes the playwright would have allowed the character more time to dwell in his own emotional reality, and allow the audience to be swept away by the story, instead of knowing the ending from the start.
Fortunately the production, directed by Kathleen Tissot, is lush in aesthetics. Mozart’s gorgeous music is brought to life by a quartet of gifted opera singers (Lauren Welch, Kate Brotherton, Patrick Chounet and Jim Chiolino) whose voices soar, and whose outlines can be seen behind the action of the play through a scrim. The set, designed by Erin S. Ball, is composed of swaths of chiffon and a collection of empty gilt-edged frames that alternately capture the characters in poses for posterity and tease the musicians with the question of whose picture will hang in the hallowed halls of history. It evokes the decadence of an 18th-century palace while giving Tissot lots of spaces for the action to play out, and allowing Mozart’s character many opportunities to disrupt the staid “frame” of court life. Costumes, designed by Sophia Luchianni, are also opulent, impressively detailed, and faithful to the time period. Touches of shimmering turquoise give the Venticelli characters (energetically played by Cody Laper and Karin Drury) a magical quality, as they report gossip and fill in details of the story for both Salieri and the audience.
So, is any of this fantastic tale from musical history true? Scholars say probably not. Does it make a good story? Yes, and one that is beautifully rendered here.
