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no musical biopic comes close to Miloš Forman’s 1984 masterpiece, amadeusAdapted by Peter Schaeffer from his own 1979 stage play – inspired by Alexander Pushkin’s 1830 poetic play, mozart and salieri – The film is flamboyant and provocative, flashing two fingers up at historical accuracy. It is based on an absurd rumor: that wolfgang amadeus mozart At the age of 35, he was driven to an early grave by the obsessively jealous court musician Antonio Salieri. But it also concerns a deeper spiritual question: Why would a just God bestow the genius of a jovial, foul-mouthed profane figure like Mozart, while condemning the pious Salieri for recognizing his mediocrity? It was not for nothing that the film won the Oscar with eight awards, including Best Film and Best Director.
Now comes a new five-part adaptation of Schaeffer’s play from Sky. Reuniting some of the key players from the classic Anglo-Japanese crime series Giri/Haji– Writer Joe Barton, director Julian Farino and BAFTA-winning actor Will Sharp – It’s gorgeous and vibrant. The acting was also excellent.
played by Salieri paul bettanyWhereas according to Barton, Sharp was the natural choice for Mozart. “Will has a very unique essence,” says the 43-year-old. “He has this quirky quality and can deliver very energetic comedic performances, but there is also a dark side to his work that we have drawn from for his role.” Giri/HajiI was also thinking about the show they did, FlowerWhere he played the role of a very sweet, almost child-like person who bounced around the world but then had a huge well of sadness within him. This is what I saw for this character.
While the series traces the familiar outline of the film, the fact that it spans five hour-long episodes means there’s “room to look at the domestic lives of these people and explore other perspectives as well as the central idea of burning jealousy”, Sharp told me.
Mozart’s wife Constanze is an example of this. A minor character in the original play, she now takes center stage alongside Gabrielle Creevy – who previously worked with Barton on her series. black pigeon-To play her smart and strong-willed, with a tinge of sadness running through her. For Barton, who is a fan of the film but had not seen it for many years, making Constanze more versatile was one of the main objectives. “I was interested in this woman who had to constantly support this almost mythical figure,” he says. “In real life, she was crucial in preserving and promoting Mozart’s music after his death – ensuring her own financial survival in the process. She’s a little lost in telling this story.”
In preparation for the role, Creevy first focused on the film. “Elizabeth Berridge’s performance was so much fun,” says the 29-year-old. Creevy then delved into it by reading one of the few books available on Konstanz. “It must have been really hard to be married to a genius,” she says. “He’s very ignored. She’s not just his wife; she’s her own person. She had this dream of singing and she never really got to do it. Being married to a genius, you just get pushed aside… it must have been very painful at times,” Creevy says. “They’ve lost their kids. You can only take so much before it goes away.”
If Constanze is given more life in this interpretation, Sharp’s Mozart reins it in. Gone are the pink punk-rock wigs and paroxysms of high-pitched laughter from Tom Hulse’s 1984 performance. This Mozart is less annoying, but more glorious and virile, which further deepens Salieri’s jealousy. Crucially, he is oblivious to their rivalry and is brutally blunt without meaning to. “We talked about theories about who might have been neurodivergent,” explains Sharp, 39. “My idea was to present him as someone who doesn’t understand social norms. If he believes something is true, he’ll say it. If someone is angry, he doesn’t understand why. He thinks his music is objectively great, so if someone questions it, he feels like they’re objectively wrong. That’s the real fallacy. He just says what he thinks.”
This makes the central dynamic – ordinary versus genius – all the more painful for Salieri. Yet Barton is keen to draw attention to how far fiction strays from fact. “It should be noted that this is all certainly made up,” he says. “In fact, Mozart was as religious as the next man, and Salieri had many children and a happy marriage.” Salieri was also a distinguished composer in his own right. Barton says, “The more you read about Salieri, the more you see that it really is a character assassination.” “He was a very good musician and in every way a generous and well-liked man. He had eight children. But now his name has been turned into shorthand for jealousy and mediocrity.”
This tension mesmerized the author. “I was interested in how his legacy is shaped by this story in which he is a major figure,” he says. “I came up with the idea of making it almost a ghost story, about a man who is haunted by a version of himself from the future who now appears every night in theaters around the world. What did he do in his life to create this future for himself?”
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For Sharp, what attracted him was highlighting talent. Sharp says, he and Barton talked at length about the burden of Mozart’s gift – “how it is both a blessing and a curse.” “How much he needs it but it keeps him at an arm’s length from people because he sees the world very differently.” Mozart reportedly experienced bouts of depression, but Sharp “refrained from pre-diagnosing him. I tried not to pay attention to specific conditions that may or may not have happened to him.” Instead, he focused on Mozart’s inner life. “Because God is such a big part of the show, and the creative process is wrapped up in God speaking through them, it was a helpful way to explore what you might interpret as magical thinking. In the creative process, it might feel like you weren’t in control – as if it came from somewhere else. It’s quite helpful to cede it to God within the story.”
People are playing it safe, which limits what stories can be told
author joe barton
Sharp sees Mozart as a man unaffected by the fashions of his time, pursuing what he believed was the best way to compose, regardless of accepted norms. He notes how someone recently said that “It’s almost as if he has the opposite of imposter syndrome, where he’s so convinced that what he’s doing is so good, that he [just] Trying to get whatever is in its way out of the way”.
His piano playing on the show is remarkable – even more so when you realize he was a Grade 3 student the piano Guys Before taking the role. Transforming into the Austrian maestro, he was paired with Benjamin Holder, the music director of the Wicked films, who had six months to mold him into a credible prodigy capable of performing segments from 20 extremely difficult pieces. When work took Sharp to America and Japan, Holder bought a portable keyboard for him to practice on the hotel ironing board.
The series also examines how art shapes society. As Rory KinnearAs Emperor Joseph II says in the series, opera has power – it reflects the world and can bring about change. This theme feels especially resonant now, as President Donald Trump threatens media and cultural institutions in the US. Barton argues that it connects more broadly to the current creative landscape. “In drama, you have to incorporate more challenging or subversive or humanitarian ideas into your work, which is a result of the political reality as well as the economic reality of the current media industry.” censorship,” he says. ”Or maybe now it’s both. “People are definitely playing it safe, which limits what stories can be told.”
Sharp was amazed by the film’s set pieces, saying it was exactly the kind of thing that “requires confidence from the people who are making it.” [television] And supporting it and financing it. There is a version of the future where everything becomes homogenized, because it’s based on data, and people try to make creative decisions based on what they think audiences want based on data,” he notes. amadeusLike the musician, he is also willing to take risks.
‘Amadeus’ launches on Sky and Now on December 21