All language subtitles for Official Amadeus

Counting to show, three, two, one.

[♪ UPLIFTING CRESCENDO]

Sometimes, one just has to draw the line.

Foul deeds will rise,

though all the earth o'erwhelm them,
to men's eyes.

VOICES MUTTERING: Salieri!... Salieri!...

Salieri!... Salieri!... Salieri!

Salieri... Salieri... Salieri...

[ON PA] Salieri, Salieri, Salieri, Salieri.

Salieri... Salieri... Salieri...

Salieri... Salieri... Salieri...

[ON PA] Salieri, assassin. Salieri, assassin.

Salieri... Salieri... Salieri...

[TUNING UP]

– WOMAN: I don't believe it! I don't believe it!
– MAN: I don't believe it! I don't believe it!

MANY VOICES: Salieri!

– WOMAN: They say... I hear...
– MAN: I hear... They say...

BOTH: I don't believe it!

[RINGTONE]
Sorry.

MANY VOICES: Salieri!

– The whole city is talking.
– You can hear it all over.

– The cafés.
– The Opera.

– The Prater!
– The gutter!

– They say even Metternich repeats it.
– They say even Beethoven, his old pupil.

– But why now?
– After so long.

32 years!

BOTH: I don't believe it!

SALIERI!

– They say he shouts it out all day.
– I hear he cries it out all night.

– Stays in his apartments.
– Never goes out.

– Not for a year now.
– Longer. Longer.

– Must be 70.
– Older. Older.

– Antonio Salieri!
– The famous musician!

– Shouting it aloud!
– Crying it aloud!

– Impossible!
– Incredible!

I don't believe it!

ALL: Salieri!

– I know who started the tale.
– I know who started the tale.

– The old man's valet.
– The old man's cook.

– The valet hears him shouting.
– The cook hears him crying.

– What a story!
– What a scandal!

– What does he say, your master?
– What exactly does he cry, your Kapellmeister?

– Alone in his house.
– All day and all night.

What sins does he shout?

– The old fellow.
– The recluse.

What horrors have you heard?

Tell us! Tell us! Tell us at once!
What does he cry? What does he cry? What does he cry?

MOZART!!!

– [WHISPER]
– Mozart!

Perdonami, Mozart! Il tuo assassino ti chiede perdono!

– Pardon, Mozart?
– Pardon your assassin!

God preserve us!

Pietà, Mozart. Mozart, pieta!

– Mercy, Mozart?
– Mozart, have mercy!.

– He speaks in Italian when excited.
– German when not.

– Perdonami, Mozart!
– Pardon your assassin!

– There was talk once before, you know.
– 32 years ago.

– When Mozart was dying.
– He claimed he'd been poisoned.

– Some say he accused a man.
– Some say that man was Salieri.

– But no one believed him.
– They knew what he died of.

– Syphilis, surely.
– Like everybody else.

– But what if Mozart was right?
– If he really was murdered?

– And by him. Our First Kapellmeister.
– Antonio Salieri!

– It can't possibly be true.
– It's not actually credible.

BOTH: Because why?
Why on earth would he do it?

– Our First Royal Kapellmeister.
– Murder his inferior?

– And why confess now?
– After 32 years!

ALL SING: ♪ Salieri!

Mozart! Mozart! Perdonami!
Il tuo assassino ti chiede perdono!

[SOBBING]

– What do you think?
– What do you think?

– I don't believe it.
– I don't believe it.

– All the same...
– Is it just possible?

BOTH: Did he do it after all?

MANY VOICES: Salieri!

Vi Saluto! Ombre del Futuro!
Antonio Salieri – a vostro servizio!

[CHURCH BELL TOLLS]

I can almost see you in your ranks,
waiting for your turns to live.

Ghosts of the Future! Be visible.
I beg you. Be visible.

Come to this dusty old room –

this time, the smallest hours of dark November,
eighteen hundred and twenty-three –

and be my Confessors!

Will you not enter this place
and stay with me till dawn?

Huh?

Just till dawn – smeary six o'clock!

VOICES MUTTERING: Salieri... Salieri...

Can you hear them? Vienna is a City of Slander.
Everyone tells tales here, even my servants.

I keep only two now – they have been with me
ever since I came here, 50 years ago.

The Keeper of the Razor, the Maker of the Cakes.
One keeps me tidy, the other keeps me full.

Leave me, both of you!
Tonight I do not go to bed at all.

Return here tomorrow morning at six precisely,
to shave, to feed your capricious master.

Via. Via, via, via! Grazie!

[DISTANT FOOTSTEPS]

Won't you appear?

I need you – desperately!

This is now the very last hour of my life.
Those about to die implore you!

What must I do to make you visible? Raise you up
in the flesh to be my last, last audience?

Does it take an invocation?
That is how it is always done in opera.

Yes! [CHUCKLING] Of course.
An invocation! The only way.

Let me try to conjure you now,
ghosts of the distant future, so I can see you.

♪ Ghosts of the future!

– ♪ Shades of time to come
– [ORCHESTRA BEGINS]

♪ So much more unavoidable
than those of time gone by

♪ Appear with what sympathy
incarnation may endow you

♪ Appear, the yet-to-be-born!

♪ The yet-to-hate!

♪ The yet-to-kill!

Appear... Posterity!

Ah!

A-ha!

There! It worked!

(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)

I can see you.
That is the result of proper training.

I was taught invocation by Gluck,
who was a true master at it. He had to be.

In his day, that is what people went to the opera for –
the raising of gods, and ghosts.

Nowadays, since Rossini became the rage,
they prefer the escapades of hairdressers.

[COUGHS]

Scusate. Invocation is an exhausting business.
I need refreshment.

Mmm!

[MOANS WITH PLEASURE]

Yeah, it is a little repellent, I admit, but actually
the first sin I have to confess to you is gluttony.

Sticky gluttony at that. Infantine – Italian gluttony!

The truth is, all my life,
I have never been able to conquer a lust

for the sweetmeats
of northern Italy where I was born.

From the ages of three to 73,

my entire career has been conducted
to the taste of almonds sprinkled with sifted sugar.

Veronese biscuits! Milanese macaroons!

Snow dumplings with pistachio sauce! Ah!

Do not judge me too harshly for this, huh?
All men harbour patriotic feelings of some kind.

My parents were provincial subjects of the Austrian
Empire. A Lombardy merchant and his Lombardy wife.

Their notion of place was the tiny town of Legnago –
which I could not wait to leave.

Although devout Catholics,
all they required of God was to protect commerce,

and keep them forever preserved in mediocrity.

My own requirements were very different.

I wanted fame.

Not to deceive you, I wanted to blaze, like a comet,
across the firmament of Europe.

Yet only in one special way.

Music. Absolute music.

A note of music is either right or wrong – absolutely!

Not even time can alter that. Music is God's art.

My one desire was to join all the composers who had
celebrated His glory through the long Italian past.

I saw Him every Sunday in church,
painted on the flaking walls.

An old candle-smoked God in a mulberry robe,
staring at the world with dealer's eyes.

Those eyes made bargains, real and irreversible.

'You give me so – I give you so! No more. No less.'

The night before I left Legnago for ever,
I went to see Him, and made a bargain with Him myself.

I was a sober 16,
and filled with a desperate sense of right.

I knelt before the God of Bargains, and I prayed
through the mouldering plaster with all my soul.

'Signore, let me be a composer!
Grant me sufficient fame to enjoy it.

'In return, I will live my life with virtue.
I will strive to better the lot of my fellows.

'And I will honour you with much music
all the days of my life.'

As I said Amen, I saw His eyes flare.

'Bene. Go forth, Antonio.
Serve Me and mankind – and you will be blessed.'

'Grazie!' I cried back. 'I am your servant for life.'

The very next day, a family friend
suddenly appeared, out of the blue,

took me off to Vienna,
and paid for me to study music.

Yeah!

Shortly afterwards I met the Emperor,
who favoured me.

Clearly my bargain had been accepted.

The same year I left Lombardy,
a young prodigy was touring Europe.

A miraculous virtuoso aged ten years.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

And now, gracious ladies, obliging gentlemen,

I present to you, for one performance only,

my last composition, entitled
'The Death of Mozart, or Did I Do It?'

Dedicated to posterity,
on this, the last night of my life.

[♪ DISCORDANT, NIGHTMARISH]

[SALIERI LAUGHING]

[♪ STOPS]

The place throughout is Vienna.

[♪ "La Veneziana" by Salieri]

The year, to begin with, 1781.

The age still that of the Enlightenment –

that clear time before the guillotine fell in France
and cut all our lives in half.

Grazie.

I am 31, already a prolific composer
to the Austrian court.

I own a respectable house,

and a respectable wife – Teresa.

I do not mock her, I assure you.

I required only one quality
in a domestic companion – lack of fire.

And in that omission, Teresa was conspicuous.

– I also have a prize pupil, Katherina Cavalieri.
– ♪ Domine Deus...

She was later to become the best singer of her age.

But then she was mainly a merry student
with bubbling eyes and a sweet, eatable mouth.

I was very much in love with Katherina,
or at least in lust.

But because of my vow to God,
I was entirely faithful to my wife.

I did not lay one finger upon the girl,

except occasionally to depress the diaphragm
in the way of teaching her to sing.

♪ Deus Pater omnipotens

Ah.

My ambition burned with an unquenchable flame.

Its chief goal, the post of First Royal Kapellmeister,
then held by Giuseppe Bonno,

70 years old and apparently immortal.

– [MUSIC STOPS]
– (AUDIENCE LAUGHS)

You, when you come, will be told that we musicians
of the 18th century were no better than servants,

the willing slaves of the well-born and well-to-do.

This is quite true. It is also quite false.

Yes, we were servants,
but we were learned servants!

And we used our learning
to celebrate men's average lives.

– We took unremarkable men...
– [MUSICAL FIGURE REPEATS]

..usual officials, run-of-the-mill bishops,

ordinary generals and statesmen and wives,

and we sacramentalised their mediocrity.

We smoothed their noons with strings divisi!

[♪ ILLUSTRATES HIS WORDS]

We pierced their nights with chittarini!

We gave them processions for their strutting.

Serenades for their rutting.

High horns for their hunting.

And drums for their wars.

Trumpets sounded when they entered the world.

And bassoons groaned when they left it.

The savour of their days remains behind because of us.

Our music still remembered
while their politics... long forgotten.

Tell me, before you call us servants...

..who served whom?

And who, I wonder, in your generations,
will immortalise you?

Sir! Sir! Sir!

I was the most successful young musician in the city
of musicians and now, suddenly, without warning...

– Mozart!
– Mozart has come!

These are my venticelli,
My 'Little Winds', as I call them.

The secret of successful living in a large city

is always to know to the minute
what is being done behind your back.

He's left Salzburg.

– Means to give concerts.
– Asking for subscribers.

I'd known of him for years, of course.
Tales of his prowess were told all over Europe.

– They say he wrote his first symphony at five.
– I hear his first concerto at four.

A full opera at 14.

– And how old is he now?
– 25.

And how long is he remaining?

– He's not departing.
– He's here to stay.

You are required to commission
a comic opera in German from Herr Mozart.

Countess Johanna von Strack, Royal Chamberlain,
a court official to her collar-bone.

Why in German? Italian is the only
possible language for opera.

Count Orsini-Rosenberg, Director of the opera,
benevolent to all things Italian – especially myself.

The idea of a National Opera
is dear to His Majesty's heart.

He desires to hear pieces in good plain German.

Yes, but why comic?
It is not the function of music to be funny.

Baron van Swieten, prefect of the Imperial Library,
ardent Freemason. Yet to find anything funny.

Known for his enthusiasm for old-fashioned music
as 'Lord Fugue'.

I heard last week a remarkable serious opera
from Mozart – Idomeneo, King of Crete.

I heard that, too. A young fellow trying to impress
beyond his abilities. Too much spice. Too many notes.

Nevertheless, kindly convey
the commission to him today.

I believe we are going to have trouble
with this young man.

He was a child prodigy. That always spells trouble.

His father is Leopold Mozart,
a bad-tempered Salzburg musician

who dragged the boy endlessly round Europe,

making him play the keyboard blindfold,
with one finger, and that sort of thing.

All prodigies are hateful –
non è vero, Compositore?

– Divengono sempre sterili cogli anni.
– Precisamente.

– [BOTH LAUGHING]
– What are you saying?

Nothing, Frau Chamberlain!
Niente, Signora Pomposa.

We meet tomorrow, I believe, on your committee
to devise pensions for old musicians.

It is most gracious of you to attend, Baron.

You're a worthy man, Salieri. You should join our
Brotherhood of Masons.

We would welcome you warmly.

I... I... I would be honoured, Baron.

If you wished,
I could arrange initiation into my lodge.

– That would be more than my due.
– Nonsense. We embrace men of talent of all conditions.

I may invite young Mozart also,
dependent on the impression he makes.

Of course, Baron.

Honour indeed. In those days almost every
man of influence in Vienna was a Mason,

and the baron's lodge by far the most fashionable.

As for young Mozart,
I confess I was alarmed by his coming.

Not by the commission of a comic opera, even though
I myself was then attempting one called

The Stolen Bucket!

(SPARSE LAUGHTER)

No, what worried me
were reports about the man himself.

He was praised altogether too much.

– Such gaiety of spirit!
– Such ease of manner!

– Such natural charm!
– Really? Where does he live?

– Petersplatz.
– Number 11.

– The landlady is Madame Weber.
– A real bitch.

She takes in male lodgers
and has a tribe of daughters.

– Mozart was engaged to one of them before.
– Aloysia.

– Now he's after another sister.
– Constanze.

Flighty little piece!

– Her mother is pushing marriage.
– His father isn't.

– Daddy is worried sick
– Writes him every day from Salzburg.

I want to meet him. What houses does he visit?

– He'll be at Baroness Waldstädten's tomorrow night.
– Grazie.

Some of his music is to be played.

– Restiamo in contatto.
– Certamente, Signore!

So, to the Baroness Waldstädten's I went.

That night changed my life.

I entered the library
to take first a little refreshment.

My generous hostess always put out the most delicious
confections in that room whenever she knew I was coming.

Dolci, caramelli, and most especially
a miraculous crema al mascarpone,

which is simply cream cheese mixed with granulated sugar
and suffused with rum – that was totally irresistible.

I had just sat down in a high-backed chair...

[WOMAN SHRIEKING]

Squeak! [LAUGHS]

Squeak!

– Miaow!
– [STIFLING LAUGHTER]

– I'm going to pounce-bounce!
– Squeak!

– [LAUGHS]
– I'm going to scrunch-munch!

I'm going to chew-poo my little mouse-wouse!

I'm going to tear her to bits with my paws-claws!

– No!
– Paws-claws! Paws-claws!

Before I could rise,
it had become difficult to do so.

I'm going to bite you in half with my fang-wangs,
my little Stanzerl-wanzerl-banzerl!

You're trembling!
I think you're frightened of puss-wuss!

I think you're scared to death!

I think you're going to shit yourself

[IMMITATNG FARTING]
Yes, in a moment it's all going to be on the floor.

– Someone will hear you!
– I can hear it coming!

Oh, what a melancholy note!
Something's dropping from your boat!

Stop it now! It's stupid! It's really stupid!

– Hey.... What's Trazom?
– What?

– T-R-A-Z-O-M. What's that mean?
– How should I know?

It's Mozart backwards, shit-wit!

– If you ever married me, you'd be Constanze Trazom.
– No, I wouldn't.

Yes, you would. Because I'd want everything
backwards when I was married.

– [GIGGLING]
– I'd want to lick my wife's arse instead of her face.

You're not going to lick anything at this rate, because
your father is never going to give his consent to us.

And who cares about his consent?

You do.

– You care very much. You wouldn't do it without it.
– Wouldn't I?

No, you wouldn't. Because you're too scared of him.
I know what he says about me.

'Marry that dreadful girl,
you'll end up lying on straw with beggars for children.'

– Marry me!
– Don't be silly

– Marry me!
– Are you serious?

Yes! Answer me now – yes or no? Ha!

Say yes, so I can go home, climb into bed,

shit all over the mattress
and shout, 'I did it!'

Her Ladyship is ready to commence.

– Ah, yes. Good.
– Ha-ha.

– Come, my dear. The music awaits!
– By all means, Herr Trazom!

[BOTH LAUGH]

And then, right away, the concert began.

I heard it through the door, some serenade,
at first only vaguely.

Too horrified to attend, but presently the sound insisted.

A solemn adagio in E flat.

[♪ ADAGIO BEGINS]

It started simply enough,
just a pulse in the lowest registers.

Bassoons and basset horns –
like a rusty squeezebox.

It would have been comic except for the slowness,
which instead gave it a sort of serenity.

And then suddenly, high above it,
sounded a single note on the oboe.

And it hung there unwavering,

piercing me through,
till breath could hold it no longer.

And a clarinet withdrew it out of me, and sweetened it
into a phrase of such delight it had me trembling.

My eyes clouded. The light flickered in the room.

The squeezebox groaned louder, and over it
the higher instruments wailed and warbled,

throwing lines of sound around me.

Long lines of pain around and through me.

The pain! Pain as I had never known it.

I called up to my sharp old God,
'What is this? What?'

But the squeezebox groaned louder and the pain
cut deeper and deeper into my shaking head,

until suddenly I was running,

dashing through a side-door,
stumbling downstairs into the street,

into the cold night, gasping for life.

'What?

'What is this?

'Tell me, Signore!

'What is this pain?

'What is this need in the sound?

'Forever unfulfillable,
yet fulfilling him who hears it, utterly.'

'Is it your need? Can it be yours?'

Dimly the music sounded from the salon above.
Dimly the stars shone on the empty street.

I was suddenly frightened.
It seemed to me that I had heard a voice of God...

and that it issued from a creature
whose own voice I had also heard

and it was the voice of an obscene child.

[MOZART LAUGHS]

I ran home and buried my fear in work.

More pupils, till there were 30 or 40.
More committees to help the lot of poor musicians.

More motets and anthems to God's glory.

And at night I prayed for just one thing.

'Let your sound enter me!

'Let me be your conduit! Let me, Signore.'

As for young Mozart, I avoided meeting him,

but sent out my Little Winds
for whatever scores of his could be found.

– Six fortepiano sonatas composed in Munich.
– Two in Mannheim.

A Parisian symphony.

Clever. They were all clever,
yet they seemed to me completely empty.

– A divertimento in D.
– A cassazione in G.

– A grand litany in E Flat.
– The same. Conventional. Even boring.

The productions of a precocious youngster,

Leopold Mozart's swanky son – nothing more.

That Serenade was obviously
an exception in his work,

the sort of accident which might visit
any composer on a lucky day.

Had I in fact been simply taken by surprise
that this filthy creature could write music at all?

Suddenly I felt immensely cheered.
I would seek him out and welcome him myself to Vienna.

Fêtes and fireworks, gentlemen!
Mozart is here! He's waiting below.

– Majesty!
– Je suis follement impatient!

The Emperor Joseph II of Austria,
son of Maria Theresa, brother of Marie Antoinette.

Adorer of music – provided that it made
no demands upon the royal brain.

Majesty, I have written a march
in Mozart's honour. May I play it as he comes in?

By all means, Court Composer.
What a delightful idea!

– Have you met him yet?
– Not yet, Majesty.

Fêtes and fireworks, what fun!
Strack, bring him up at once.

Mon Dieu, I wish we could have a competition.

Mozart against... well, some other virtuoso.

Two keyboards in contest.
Wouldn't that be fun, Baron?

Not to me, Majesty.

In my view, musicians are not horses
to be run against one another.

Ah. Well, there it is.

– Herr Mozart, Majesty.
– Splendid! Court Composer – allons!

[CLEARS THROAT] Admit him, please

[♪ DELICATE MARCH]

– [MUSIC STOPS]
– Charming! Charming. Comme d'habitude!

Mozart.

Majesty! Your Majesty's humble slave!
Let me kiss your royal hand a hundred thousand times!

Non, non, s'il vous plaît! A little less enthusiasm,
I beg you. Come sir, levez-vous!

You will not recall it, but the last time we met
you were also on the floor.

My... My sister remembers it to this day.

This young man – all of six years old, mind you –

slipped on the floor at Schönbrunn,
came a nasty purler on his little head...

– Have I told you this before?
– No, Majesty!

Well, my sister Antoinette runs forward,
picks him up herself – and do you know what he does?

He jumps right into her arms – hoopla, just like that! –
kisses her on both cheeks and says,

'Will you marry me, yes or no?'

Ha-ha!

[AWKWARD LAUGH]

I do not mean to embarrass you, Herr Mozart.
You know everyone here, surely?

Yes, sire. Herr Director... Herr Prefect...

Delighted to see you again.

But not, I think, our esteemed Court Composer.
A most serious omission!

No one who cares for art
can afford not to know Herr Salieri.

Why, he wrote that exquisite
little march of welcome for you.

– It was a trifle, Majesty.
– Nevertheless...

I'm overwhelmed, Signore.

– Ideas simply pour out of him, don't they, Strack?
– Endlessly, sire. Well done, Salieri.

Let it be my pleasure then to introduce you.

Court Composer Salieri,
Herr Mozart of Salzburg!

Finalmente. Che gioia. Che diletto straordinario.

Grazie Signore! Mille milioni di benvenuti!

Sono commosso! È un onore eccezionale incontrarla!
Compositore brillante e famosissimo!

Grazie.

Tell me, have you received
our commission for the opera?

I have indeed, Majesty.
I am so grateful I can hardly speak.

I swear to you that you will have the best,
most perfect entertainment ever offered a monarch.

– I've already found a libretto.
– Have you? I didn't hear of this.

Forgive me, Herr Director,
I entirely omitted to tell you.

– May I ask why?
– It didn't really seem important.

– Not important?
– Not really, no.

– It is important to me, Herr Mozart.
– Yes, of course. I can see that.

– And, pray, who is it by?
– Stephanie.

– A most unpleasant man.
– But a brilliant writer.

Do you think?

The story is very amusing, Majesty.
The whole plot is set in a...

[LAUGHS] ..in a...

– Where? Where is it set?
– Well, it's really rather saucy, Majesty.

– Oh, Yes, yes! Where?
– Well, it's actually set in a seraglio.

Oh, ha-ha. A seraglio.

– A what?
– A pasha's harem.

And you imagine that is a suitable subject
for a performance at a National Theatre?

Yes! No! Yes, I mean yes. And why not?
It's very funny. It's amusing.

On my life, Majesty, there is nothing
offensive in it. Nothing in the world.

It's full of proper German virtues, I swear it.

Scusate, Signore, but what exactly are those?
Being a foreigner I'm not sure.

– You are being cattivo, Court Composer.
– Not at all, Majesty.

Come, Mozart. Name us a proper German virtue.

Love, Sire. I have yet to see that
expressed in any opera.

Well answered, Mozart

Scusate. I was under the impression that
one rarely saw anything else expressed in opera.

I mean manly love, Signore, not male sopranos screeching
or stupid couples rolling their eyes.

None of that absurd Italian rubbish.

– A-hem.
– I mean the real thing.

Do you know the real thing yourself, Herr Mozart?

– Under your pardon, Majesty, I think I do.
– [LAUGHING] Bravo!

– When do you think it will be done?
– The first act's already finished.

The first...? Well...

It can't be more than
two weeks since you started.

Composing is not hard
when you have the right audience to please.

A charming reply, Majesty.

Indeed, Baron. Fêtes and fireworks!
I see we are going to have fêtes and fireworks!

Au revoir, Monsieur Mozart.
Soyez le bienvenu à la cour.

Majesté! Je suis comblé d'honneur d'être accepté
dans la maison du Père de tous les musiciens.

Servir un monarque
aussi plein de discernement que votre Majesté,

c'est un honneur qui dépasse le sommet de mes dûs!

Ah.

Well, there it is.
I'll leave you gentlemen to get better acquainted.

– Good day, Majesty.
– Votre Majesté.

– Good day to you.
– Good day.

Welcome, Mozart.
I shall see much more of you. Depend on it!

Thank you.

– Bene.
– Bene.

– I too wish you success with your opera.
– I'll have it. It's going to be superb.

I must tell you, I've already found
the most perfect singer for the leading part.

– Really? Who is that?
– Cavalieri. Katherina Cavalieri.

She's really German, but she thinks it will
advance her career if she sports an Italian name.

She is quite right. It was my idea.
She is, in fact, my prize pupil.

Actually, she's a very innocent child, you know,
silly in the way of young singers.

But, you know, she's only 20. [CHUCKLES]

I had kept my hands off Katherina. Yes!

But I could not bear to think of
anyone else's upon her – least of all his.

You're a good fellow, Salieri!
And that's a jolly little thing you wrote for me.

– It was my pleasure.
– Let me see if I can remember it. May I?

By all means. It's yours.

[SALIERI CHUCKLING]

[♪ TENTATIVELY BEGINS]

[♪ CONFIDENTLY PLAYS THE MARCH]

The rest is just the same, isn't it?

– You have a remarkable memory.
– Grazie ancora, Signore.

[♪ REPEATS A PHRASE]

That fourth doesn't really work, does it?
Let's try the third above.

Yes.

[♪ REPEATS THE PHRASE]

[♪ PLAYS THE MARCH]

[♪ HE IMPROVISES, ADDING FLOURISHES]

[♪ BUILDING THE MELODY]

(APPLAUSE)

– Scusate. I must go.
– Really? Won't you try a variation?

– [SHARPLY] No.
– Oh.

No, I, er... I must attend on the emperor.

– Ah.
– It has been delightful to meet you.

And for me, too. And thanks for the march.

Are you all right?

(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)

Was it then, so early,
that I began to have thoughts of murder?

No. No, of course not. At least, not in life.
In art, it was a different matter.

I decided I would compose a huge tragic opera,
something to astonish the world, and I knew my theme.

I would set the Legend of Danaius,
who, for a monstrous crime,

was chained to a rock for eternity,
his head repeatedly struck by lightning.

Wickedly, in my head,
I saw Mozart in that position.

In reality, of course,
the man was in no danger from me at all.

Not yet.

The first performance of
The Abduction from the Seraglio –

the Creature's expression of 'manly love'.

[ORCHESTRA TUNING UP]

He himself contrived to wear for the occasion
an even more vulgar coat than usual.

As for the music, it matched the coat completely.

[♪ "Martern aller Arten" by Mozart]

♪ Doch du bist entschlossen

♪ Doch du bist entschlossen

♪ Willig, unverdrossen

♪ Wähl ich jede Pein und Not

♪ Wähl ich jede Pein

♪ Jede Pein und Not

♪ Ordne nur, gebiete!

♪ Ordne nur, gebiete!

♪ Lärme! Tobe! Wüte!
Zuletzt ... ♪

For my dear pupil Katherina Cavalieri he had written
quite simply the showiest aria I'd ever heard.

Ten minutes of scales and ornaments.

So ridiculous was the piece that I knew precisely
what Mozart must have demanded in return for it.

– [♪ KATHERINA SINGS COLORATURA]
– Do you hear this?

– ♪ ..mich doch der Tod!
– Do you hear it?

Rubbish!

♪ Mich doch der Tod!

♪ Der Tod! ♪

He'd had her!

I knew this beyond any doubt.

[♪ "Bassa Selim lebe lange" by Mozart]

♪ Bassa Selim lebe lange

♪ Lange lange lange

♪ Ehre sei sein Eigentum

♪ Ehre sei sein Eigentum

♪ Seine holde Scheitel prange
Voll von Jubel, voll von Ruhm

♪ Seine holde Scheitel prange
Voll von Jubel, voll von Ruhm

♪ Voll von Jubel, voll von Ruhm

♪ Voll von Jubel, voll von Ruhm

♪ Voll von Ruhm
Voll von Ruhm! ♪

(APPLAUSE)

CONSTANZE: Oh, well done, lovey!
Well done, pussy-wussy!

– I am so proud of you
– MOZART: I'm proud of you...

Oh, excuse me!

Majesty, may I present my fiancée...

– [KATHERINA SQUEALS]
– ..Fräulein Weber.

– Enchanté, Fräulein.
– Your Majesty!

– Constanze is a singer herself.
– Indeed?

I'm not at all, Majesty. Don't be silly, Wolfgang.

– Mozart!
– Yes, sir.

A good effort. Decidedly that. A good effort.

– Did you really think so, Sire?
– Yes, I thought it was most interesting, indeed.

Er... Well, er...

A trifle – how shall one say?
How shall one say, Director?

Too many notes, Majesty?

– Very well put. Too many notes.
– I don't understand.

My dear fellow, don't take it too hard.

There are, in fact, only so many notes
the ear can hear in the course of an evening.

I think that is right. I'm right in saying that,
aren't I, Court Composer?

Well, yes. I would say yes.

On the whole, yes, Majesty.

Well, there you are. It's clever.
It's German. It's quality work.

And there are simply too many notes. Do you see?

There are just as many notes, Majesty,
neither more nor less, than are required.

A-ha. Well, there it is

– Is he angry?
– No, no, no. He respects you for your views.

I hope so. What did you think, sir?
Did you care for the piece at all?

Yes, of course, Mozart.
At its best, it is truly charming.

And at other times?

Well, at other times, in Katherina's aria,
for example, it is a little... excessive.

Katherina is an excessive girl.
In fact she's insatiable.

All the same, as my revered teacher,
the Chevalier Gluck, used to say to me,

one must avoid music that smells of music.

– [SNORTS] Gluck is absurd!
– What did you say?

He spent his whole life
talking about modernising opera,

but creates people so lofty
they sound as though they shit marble.

– [CONSTANZE SHRIEKS] Oh, 'scuse me!
– No, but it's too much!

It's too much, Gluck says!
Gluck says! Chevalier Gluck!

What's a Chevalier? I'm a Chevalier. The Pope
made me a Chevalier when I was still wetting my bed.

– Wolferl!
– Anyway it's ridiculous. Only stupid farts sport titles.

Such as Court Composer?

What? Oh. Ha ha...

My father's right again. He always says I should
padlock my mouth. Perhaps I shouldn't speak at all.

[SALIERI CHUCKLES]

Nonsense. I am being
what the Emperor would call cattivo.

Now. Won't you introduce me
to your charming fiancée?

Oh, of course! Constanze, this is Herr Salieri,
the Court Composer. Fräulein Weber.

– Delighted, cara Fräulein.
– How do you do, Excellency?

May I ask, when do you marry?

We have yet to secure my father's consent.

He's a brilliant man, a wonderful man,
but sometimes a little bit stubborn.

– Ah. Excuse me, but how old are you?
– 26.

– Then your father's consent is scarcely indispensable.
– You see?

Well, it's not indispensable, of course not.

My advice – marry and be happy.

You have found,
it is quite obvious, un tesoro raro.

Ta very much.

– Good night to you both.
– Good night, Excellency.

Good night, sir. And thank you. Come, dearest.

As I watched her walk away on the arm of the Creature,
I felt the lightning thought strike.

'Have her!

'Her for Katherina!'

Abomination!

Never! Never, never in my life
had I entertained a notion so sinful.

[SHRIEKS OF LAUGHTER]

– They're married!
– What?

– Mozart and Weber, married!
– Really?

– His father will be furious!
– They didn't even wait for his consent!

Have they set up house?

– Wipplingerstrasse.
– Number 12.

– Not bad,
– Considering they've no money,

Is that really true?

– He's wildly extravagant.
– Lives way beyond his means.

– But he has pupils.
– Only three.

– Why so few?
– [THEY LAUGH]

– He's embarrassing!
– Makes scenes.

– Makes enemies.
– Even Strack, whom he cultivates.

Chamberlain Strack?

– Only last night...
– At Kapellmeister Bonno's...

[♪ "La Veneziana" 2nd movement]

Seven months in this city and not one job!

– Am I not to be tried again, is that it?
– Of course not.

I know what goes on – and so do you.
Germany is completely in the hands of foreigners.

– Worthless wops like Kapellmeister Bonno!
– Please! You're in the man's house.

– Court Composer Salieri!
– Hush!

Did you hear his latest opera?
The Stolen Bucket? Did you?

– Of course I did.
– Dog shit!

Dried dogshit!

I beg your pardon!

Pom-pa-pom, pom-pa-pom! Tonic and dominant,
tonic and dominant from here to resurrection!

Not one interesting modulation all night.

Salieri is a musical idiot!

– VENTICELLO: He'd had too much to drink.
– VENTICELLO: He often had.

Why are Italians so terrified
by the slightest complexity in music?

Show them one chromatic passage and they faint!
'Oh how sick!' 'How morbid!'

'Nervoso! Morboso! Ohimè!'
No wonder the music at this court is so dreary.

– Lower your voice!
– Lower your breeches!

Just a joke.

You look like a toad!

I mean, you're goggling like a toad.

You'd do best to retire tonight, for your own sake.

Salieri has 50 pupils. I have three.

How am I to live? I'm a married man now.

Of course, I realise you don't concern yourselves
with money in these exalted circles.

All the same, did you realise that behind his back,
His Majesty is known as 'Kaiser Keep-It'?

– Mozart!
– I shouldn't have said that.

Just a joke. Another joke! I can't help myself.
We're all friends here, aren't we?

What's wrong with her?

– Good night.
– No, no, your hand first, please!

– Give me a post, sir.
– It is not in my power, Mozart.

The Princess Elizabeth is looking for an instructor.
One word from you could secure it for me.

I regret that is solely in the recommendation
of Court Composer Salieri.

Do you know I am better
than any musician in Vienna?

Do you?

[EXASPERATED SIGH]

Foppy-wops – I'm sick of them!

Foppy-wops! Foppy – woppy – toppy –
sloppy – woppy – hoppy-wops! Wops!

[BLOWS RASPBERRY] Wops!

Barely one month later, that thought of revenge
became more than thought.

[WHOOPING, SHOUTING, HEAVY BEAT]

[♪ "Symphony No. 25 in G minor" by Mozart]

One, two, three four!

– Forfeit!
– Forfeit, Stanzerl! You've got to forfeit!

– I won't.
– You have to.

It's the game.

Once again, believe it or not, I was in the same
concealing chair in the baroness's library.

You lost! Now there's a penalty.

A party celebrating the New Year's Eve.

Well, what? What is it?

– I want to measure your calves.
– [GUESTS LAUGH]

Well?

– Definitely not. You cheeky bugger!
– Now come on!

No, you've got to let her, Stanzerl.
All's fair in love and forfeits.

No it isn't – so you can both buzz off!

If you don't let me, you won't be allowed to play again.

Well, choose something else, then.

I've chosen that. Now get up on the piano.
Quick, quick! Allez-oop!

– Hold her, Friedrich.
– I don't have to be held, thank you.

Yes, you do, that's part of the penalty.

– Stop it! Stop that! That's quite enough of that.
– 17 inches, knee to ankle!

– Let me do it! You hold her!
– That's not fair.

– Yes, it is. You lost to me, too.
– It's been done now. Let me down!

Hold her, Karla!

Constanze!

Gentlemen, if you please.

– It's only a game, Wolferl!
– We meant no harm.

Come down off that piano. Now. Please.

OK.

– Thank you. We'll see you later.
– Now look, Mozart, don't be pompous.

Please leave us now!

[♪ BEAT RISES]

One, two, three, four...

[♪ SYMPHONY CONTINUES]

– Do you realise what you've done?
– No, what?

You've just ruined your reputation, that's all.

– You're now a loose girl.
– Don't be so stupid.

– You are a married woman, for God's sake!
– And what of it?

A young wife should not allow her legs
to be handled in public.

– Couldn't you have measured your own ugly legs?
– What?

Do you know what you've done?

Do you know what you've done?

You've shamed me – that's all. Shamed me!

– Don't be so ridiculous!
– You have shamed me in front of them!

– You?
– Yes.

– Shamed you?
– Yes!

That's a laugh!
If there's any shame around, lovey, it's mine.

[SNORTS] What does that mean?

– You've only had every pupil who ever came to you.
– Ha! That's not true.

Every single female pupil!

Name them! Name them!

The Auernhammer girl! The Rumbeck girl!
Katherina Cavalieri... that sly little whore.

She wasn't even your pupil. She was Salieri's.

Which actually, my dear, may be why
he has hundreds and you have none.

He doesn't drag them into bed!

Of course he doesn't!
He can't get it up, that's why.

Have you heard his music?
That is the sound of somebody who can't get it up!

– At least I can do that.
– I'm sick of you.

– Nobody ever said I couldn't do that!
– I don't give a fart!

I hate you!

I hate you for ever and ever! I hate you!

Stanzerl, don't you cry. I can't bear it when you cry.

I just didn't want you to look cheap
in other people's eyes, that's all.

Here! Beat me.

Beat me, I'm your slave.

Stanzi marini... Stanzi marini bini gini.

I'll just stand here like a little lamb
and bear your strokes.

– Batti...
– No.

– Batti, batti. Mio tesoro!
– No!

– Stanzerly wanzerly piggly poo.
– Stop it!

Stanzy manzy had a fit!

– Shit her stays and made them split.
– Stop it!

When they took away her skirt...

– Stanzy manzy ate the dirt.
– Stop it, now!

Do it again! Do it again!
I cast myself at your stinking feet, Madonna!

– [HOLLERS]
– Good evening.

– Excellency!
– How long have you been there?

I was, um, asleep until a second ago.

Are you two quarrelling?

– No, of course not.
– Yes, we are. He's being very irritating.

Caro Herr, tonight is the time
for New Year resolutions. Huh?

Irritating lovely ladies cannot
surely be one of yours.

May I suggest you bring us each
a sorbetto from the dining-room?

Why don't we all go to the table?

Herr Salieri is quite right.
Bring them here – it'll be your punishment.

– Stanzi!
– Come, come, I can keep your wife company.

There cannot be a better peace offering
than a sorbetto of aniseed.

– I prefer tangerine.
– Ah. Very well then, tangerine.

But if you could possibly manage
one of aniseed for me, I'd be deeply obliged.

So the New Year can begin coolly
for all three of us.

[SHE LAUGHS]

I'm honoured, Signore, of course.

[♪ HEAVY BEAT]

[♪ Symphony No. 25 variation]

[MUSIC FADES]

– He's a love, really.
– And lucky, too, in you.

You are, if I may say so, an astonishing creature.

Me? Ta very much.

Your husband, on the other hand,
does not appear to be so thriving.

– We're desperate, sir.
– What?

We've no money and no prospects of any.
That's the truth.

I don't understand.
He gives many public concerts.

They don't pay enough.
What he needs is pupils. Illustrious pupils.

His father calls us spendthrifts, but that's unfair.
I manage as well as anyone could.

There is simply not enough.

– Don't tell him I talked to you, please.
– This is solely between us. How can I help?

My husband needs security, sir. If he could find
regular employment, everything would be all right.

– Is there nothing at court?
– Nothing at the moment.

– The Princess Elizabeth needs a tutor.
– Really? I hadn't heard.

One word from you and the post would be his.

– Other pupils would follow at once.
– He's coming back.

Please! Please, Excellency.
You can't imagine what a difference it would make.

– We cannot speak of this now.
– When, then? Please.

Can you come and see me tomorrow? Alone?

I can't do that

– I'm a married man.
– All the same.

– When does he work?
– Afternoons.

– Then come at three.
– I can't possibly!

– Yes or no? In his interests?
– GUESTS: Three... two... one.

[FOOTSTEPS RUNNING AWAY]

So, I'd done it! Spoken aloud. Invited her!

What of that vow made in church?
Fidelity – virtue – all that?

I could not think of that now!

Happy New Year!

The next afternoon I waited in a fever.
Would she come? I had no idea.

And if she did, how would I behave?

Was I actually going to seduce
a young wife of two months' standing?

Part of me – much of me – wanted it, badly.

Yes, badly. 'Badly' was the word.

– [BELL TINKLES]
– There she was.

On the stroke.
She'd come. She'd come!

Signora!

– Excellency.
– Benvenuta.

– What?
– Welcome.

[BOTH LAUGH]

Grazie. Grazie tante.

So... You've come.

I should not have done. My husband would be
frantic if he knew. He's a very jealous man.

Are you a jealous woman?

– Why do you ask?
– It is not a passion I understand.

You are looking even prettier
than you were yesterday, if I may say so.

Ta very much!
I brought some manuscripts by Wolfgang.

When you see them you'll understand
how right he is for a royal appointment.

– Will you look at them, please, while I wait?
– You mean now?

Yes. I'll have to take them back with me.
He'll miss them otherwise.

He doesn't make copies. These are all originals.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)

Sit down. Please.

– Allow me offer you something special.
– What's that?

Capezzoli di Venere. Nipples of Venus.
Roman chestnuts in brandied sugar.

– No, thank you.
– Do try. My cook made them especially for you.

– Me?
– Yes. They are quite rare.

Well then, I'd better, hadn't I?
Just one... Ta very much.

Oh!

– They're delish!
– Aren't they?

– Have another.
– I couldn't possibly.

[SALIERI CHUCKLES]

I think you are the most
generous girl in the world.

– Generous?
– That is my word for you.

I thought last night that Constanze
is altogether too stiff a name for that girl.

I shall rechristen her 'Generosa'.
La Generosa!

Then I'll write a beautiful song for her
under that title, and she will sing it, just for me.

I'm very much out of practice, sir.

Generosa.

Don't tell me it's going to prove inaccurate,
my name for you.

What name do you call your wife, Excellency?

I am not an Excellency,
and I call my wife Signora Salieri.

If I were to call her anything else
it would be La Statua.

– She is a very upright lady.
– Is she here now? I'd like to meet her.

Alas, no. She is visiting her parents in Verona.

Constanze, tomorrow evening
I dine with the Emperor.

One word from me recommending
your husband as tutor to the Princess Elizabeth,

and that invaluable post is his.

Believe me, when I speak to His Majesty
in matters musical, no one contradicts me.

– I believe you.
– Bene.

Surely, a service of that sort
requires a little, er... recompense in return?

How little?

The size of a kiss.

– Just one?
– If one seems fair to you.

Does it?

– I fancy that's fairness enough.
– Pity.

[CLEARS THROAT]
It seems... It seems somewhat small pay,

to secure a post
every musician in Vienna is hoping for.

– What do you mean?
– Is it not obvious?

No. Not at all.

Another pity. A thousand pities.

– I'm going! I'm getting out of this.
– What?

– No, Constanze, please...
– Let me pass, please.

I am a clumsy man.
You think me sophisticated – I am not at all.

Take a true look. I've no cunning.

I live on ink and sweetmeats.
I never see women at all.

When I saw you last night,
I envied Mozart from the depths of my soul.

Out of that envy came stupid thoughts.

For one silly second I dared imagine that,
out of the vast store you obviously possess,

you might spare one coin of tenderness
your rich husband does not need...

And inspire me also.

[BELLY LAUGH]

I amuse?

Mozart was right. You're wicked!

He said that?

'All wops are performers,' he said.
'Be very careful with that one' – meaning you.

I mean you're playing a pretty obvious role,
aren't you, dear? Hm?

Small-town boy?
All the time as clever as cutlets.

Ah!

Are you sulking? Are you?

When Mozart sulks, I smack his botty.

He rather likes it. Do you want me
to scold you a bit and smack your botty, too?

How dare you? You silly, common girl!

Forgive me. [CLEARS THROAT]

Let us confine our talk to your husband.
He is a brilliant keyboard player, no question.

However, the Princess Elizabeth
also requires a tutor in vocal music.

I'm not convinced he is the man for that.

I will look at the pieces you have brought
and decide whether he is mature enough.

I will study them overnight –
and you will study my proposal

Not to be vague, that is my price.
Good afternoon.

Fiasco!

Fiasco!

Fiasco! Fiasco! Fiasco! Fiasco!

The sordidness of it!

The sheer sweating sordidness of it!

Worse than if I'd actually done it!

To be that much in sin
and feel so ridiculous as well!

Nobile, nobile Salieri!
What had he done to me – this Mozart?

Before he came, did I behave like this?

Did I? Did I?

Did I?

Toy with adultery?

Blackmail women?

It was all slipping, going, growing rotten –
because of him.

[♪ "Symphony No. 29 in A major" by Mozart]

She had said that these were his original scores,
the first and only drafts of his music.

And yet they seemed to me like fair copies.

They contained no corrections of any kind.

It was puzzling and then...

..suddenly alarming!

[MUSIC STOPS]

What was evident was that Mozart was simply
transcribing music completely finished in his head.

And finished in a way
that most music is never finished.

[♪ 1st Movement,
Sinfonia Concertante IN E flat major]

Displace one note and there'd be diminishment.
Displace one phrase and the structure would fall.

Here again, only now in abundance,

were the same sounds
I'd heard that night in the library.

The same crushed harmonies...
glancing collisions...

Agonising delights!

[MUSIC STOPS]

The truth was clear.

That Serenade was not an accident.

I was staring through the cage of those
meticulous ink strokes at an absolute beauty.

[♪ Great Mass in C minor: Kyrie]

♪ Christe eleison

[♪ COLORATURA ORNAMENTATION]

[MUTTERING TO HIMSELF]

♪ Eleison

♪ Eleison

COMPANY: ♪ Kyrie eleison

♪ Kyrie eleison

♪ Kyrie eleison

Agh!

♪ Kyrie eleison

♪ Eleison, Eleison

♪ Eleison, Eleison

[♪ WORDS REPEAT AND BLEND]

[THUNDEROUS, ECHOING CRASH]

[CHORUS FADES]

[SALIERI MOANING]

[SOBBING]

[LAUGHS]

Capisco.

I know my fate.

Now, for the first time, I feel my emptiness
as Adam felt his nakedness.

Tonight, at an inn somewhere in this city,

stands a giggling child who can put on paper,

without actually setting down his billiard cue,

casual notes which turn my most considered ones
into lifeless scratches.

Grazie, Signore!

Grazie, Signore.

You gave me the desire to serve You –
which most men do not have –

then saw to it that the service
was shameful in the ears of the server.

Grazie tante!

Grazie tante!

You put into me a desire to praise You –
which most do not feel –

then made me mute.

Grazie tante!

You... You put into me a perception
of the incomparable –

which most men never know –

then saw to it
that I would know myself forever mediocre.

Why?

Why? What is my fault?

Until this day,
I have pursued virtue with rigour.

I have laboured long hours
to relieve my fellow men.

I have worked and worked and worked
and worked the talent You allowed me.

You know how hard I have worked!

Solely that in the end,

in the practice of this... this art

which alone makes the world comprehensible
to me, I might hear Your Voice.

And now I do hear it,
and it says only one name.

Mozart.

Sniggering, conceited, infantine Mozart.

Who has never worked one minute
to help another man.

Shit-talking Mozart
and his botty-smacking wife!

Him! Him You choose!

Him You choose to be Your sole conduit.

And my only reward, my sublime privilege,

is to be the sole man alive in this time
who shall clearly recognise Your incarnation!

Grazie e grazie ancora!

[SPITS]

So be it.
From this time we are enemies, You and I.

I will not accept this from You,
do you hear?

They say God is not mocked.
I tell you, Man is not mocked!

I am not mocked!

They say the spirit bloweth where it listeth.

I tell you NO! It must list to virtue
or not blow at all.

Dio Ingiusto! You are the enemy!

I name Thee now – Nemico Eterno!

And this I swear, to my last breath,
I shall block You on Earth, as far as I am able.

What use is Man, after all,
if not to teach God His lessons?

[GROANING]

– [BELL TOLLING]
– Mozart!

[GROANING]

(APPLAUSE)

(WHISTLES, CHEERS)

(HUM OF CONVERSATION)

[STRINGS TUNING UP]

[♪ STRINGS FAINTLY WAILING, CATLIKE]

♪ Mi-aouw!

♪ Mi-aouw

♪ Mi-aouw

♪ Mi-aouw

♪ Mi-aouw

♪ Mi-i-i-i-i-i-aouw... ♪

SALIERI: I have been listening to the cats
in the courtyard.

They are all singing Rossini.

It is obvious that cats have declined
almost as badly as composers.

WOMAN: Beginners, please.

This is now the very last hour of my life.

You must understand me, not forgive.
I do not seek forgiveness.

I was a good man,
in the way that the world calls good.

What use was it to me? Huh?

Goodness could not make me a good composer.

Was Mozart good?
Goodness is nothing in the furnace of art.

On that dreadful Night of the Manuscripts,
my life acquired a terrible and thrilling purpose.

The blocking of God
in one of His purest manifestations.

I had the power. God needed Mozart
to let Himself into the world.

And Mozart needed me
to get him worldly advancement.

So, it would be a battle to the end –
and Mozart was the battleground.

One thing I knew of God –
He was a cunning enemy.

Witness the fact that
in blocking Him in the world,

I was also given the satisfaction
of obstructing a disliked human rival.

I wonder which of you
would refuse that chance if it were offered.

I felt the danger at once,
as soon as I'd spoken my challenge.

How would He respond?

Would He strike me down for my impiety?

Ha!

Do not laugh.
I was not a sophisticate of the salons.

I was a small-town Catholic, full of dread.

[ECHOING CHIMES]

The first thing that happened –
barely one hour later...

[BELL TINKLES]

Constanze was back.
At ten o'clock at night!

Signora!

[MONOTONE] My husband is at a soirée
of Baron van Swieten.

A concert of Sebastian Bach.
He didn't think I would enjoy it.

I see...
We will ring if we require anything.

Where do we go, then?

– What?
– Do we do it here?

Why not?

Well? Let's get on with it!

Your manuscripts are there.
Take them and go. Leave now. At once.

– You shit!
– Via! Do not return.

– You rotten shit!
– [YELLS] Via! Via!

You see how it was. I would have liked her
just then, yes, more than ever.

But I wanted nothing petty!

My quarrel now was not with Mozart –
it was through him.

Through him to God who loved him so.
Amadeus! Amadeus!

The next day, when Katherina Cavalieri
came for her lesson,

I gave her the same halting speech
about 'coins of tenderness' –

and I dubbed the girl La Generosa.

I regret that my invention in art and in love
has always been limited.

Fortunately, Katharina found it sufficient.

She consumed twenty 'Nipples of Venus',
kissed me with brandied breath,

and slipped easily into my bed.

[♪ "Symphony No. 25 in G minor",
sultry variation]

[BOTH LAUGH]

[SHRIEKS]

She remained there for many years as my mistress
behind my good wife's back –

and I soon erased in sweat the sense of
his little body, the Creature's, preceding me.

So much for my vow of sexual virtue.

[♪ Sultry variation of "Symphony No. 25 in G minor"
continues]

That same evening i went to the palace and resigned
from all my committees to help the lot of poor musicians.

So much for my vow of social virtue.

Then I went to the emperor and recommended a man of
no talent whatever to instruct the Princess Elizabeth.

Herr Sommer? A dull man, surely? What of Mozart?

Majesty, I cannot with a clear conscience recommend
Mozart to teach royalty. One hears too many tales.

They may be just gossip.

One of them I regret relates to a protégé
of my own, a very young singer.

– Charmant!
– Not pleasant, Majesty, but true.

I see. Well, let it be Herr Sommer, then.
I dare say he can't do much harm.

To be frank, no one can do much harm
musically to the Princess Elizabeth.

Majesty.

Mozart certainly did not suspect me.
The emperor made his announcement in the usual way.

Well, there it is.

And I commiserated with the loser.

It's my own fault! My father always writes
I should be more obedient, know my place.

He'll send me 16 lectures when he hears of this,

It was a most serious loss,
as far as Mozart was concerned.

– His list of pupils hardly moves.
– Six at most.

– And now a child to keep!
– A boy.

Poor fellow. I, by contrast, prospered.
This is the extraordinary truth.

If I had expected fury from God, none came. None!

Instead, incredibly, in '84 and '85 I came to be
considered as infinitely the superior composer.

My operas were played everywhere
and saluted by everyone.

[♪ "Les Danaides" by Salieri]

CHORUS: ♪ Danaüs! ♪

AUDIENCE: Bravo!

– Stupendous reception!
– The plaudits shake the roof!

– Your name sounds throughout the empire!
– Throughout all Europe!

It was incomprehensible. Almost as if I were
being pushed deliberately from triumph to triumph.

I filled my head with golden opinions,
and my house with golden furniture.

[♪ STRONG, JARRING BEAT]

[♪ "Golden Furniture" by Slater]

[♪ MUSIC STOPS]

My own taste was for plain things,
but, er... I denied it.

The successful lived with gold, and so would I.

SLEAZILY: Hello.

[LAUGHS SUGGESTIVELY]

I grew confident. I grew resplendent.

I gave salons and soirées, and worshipped
the season round at the altar of sophistication.

– Mozart heard your comedy last night.
– He spoke of it to Princess Lichnowsky.

– He said you should be made to clean up your own mess.
– Really? What charmers these Salzburgers are!

People are outraged by him.

He empties drawing-rooms.
Now Van Swieten is angry with him.

Lord Fugue? I thought he was the baron's little pet.

– Mozart has asked leave to write an Italian opera.
– Italian opera! Threat! My kingdom!

– And the baron is scandalised.
– Why? What is the theme of it?

Figaro? The Marriage of Figaro?
That disgraceful play of Beaumarchais!

That's all he can find to waste his talent on –
a vulgar farce!

Noblemen lusting after chambermaids!

Their wives dressing up in stupid disguises
anyone could penetrate in a second!

And when I reproved him,
he said I reminded him of his father.

I simply cannot imagine
why Mozart should want to set that rubbish!

Because... Because I want to do a piece
about real people, Baron!

And I want to set it in a real place! A boudoir!

Because that, to me,
is the most exciting place on Earth.

Underclothes on the floor!
Sheets still warm from a woman's body!

– Even a pisspot brimming under the bed!
– Mozart!

I want life, Baron. Not boring legends!

Herr Salieri's recent Danaius was a legend
and that did not bore the French.

Well, it's impossible to bore the French!
Except with real life!

I had assumed, now that you had joined our Brotherhood
of Masons, you would choose more elevated themes.

Oh, elevated! Elevated!
The only thing a man should elevate is his doodle.

You are provoking, sir!
Has everything to be a joke with you?

Excuse language, Baron, but really!
How can we go on forever with these gods and heroes?

Because they go on forever, that's why.
They represent the eternal in us.

Opera is here to ennoble us, Mozart –
you and me just as well as the emperor.

It is an aggrandising art! It celebrates
the eternal in man and ignores the ephemeral.

The goddess in woman and not the laundress.

– Well said, sir. Exactly!
– [MOCKING] 'Oh, well said, sir. Exactly!'

I don't understand you! You're all up on your perches,
but it doesn't hide your arseholes.

You don't give a shit about gods and heroes!

If you are honest – each of you – which of you isn't
more at home with his hairdresser than Hercules?

Or Horatius? Or your stupid Danaius, for that matter?

Or mine – or mine...

Idomeneo, King of Crete!

All anguished antiques! They're all bores!
Bores, bores, bores, bores, bores!

All serious opera written this century is boring!

[BLOWS RASPBERRY]

Look at us! Four gaping mouths.

A perfect quartet! I'd love to write it.

Yes, just this second of time, this now, just as you are.

Frau Chamberlain thinking, 'Impertinent Mozart!
I must speak to the emperor at once!'

Herr Prefect thinking, 'Ignorant Mozart!
Debasing opera with his vulgarity!'

Herr Court Composer thinking 'German Mozart!
What can he finally know about music?'

And Herr Mozart himself, in the middle, thinking,

'I'm just a good fellow.
Why do they all disapprove of me?'

That is why opera is important, Baron.
Because it is realer than any play.

The dramatic poet would have put all those thoughts down,
one after the other, to represent this second of time.

The composer can put them all down at once.

And still make us hear each of them.

Astonishing device – the vocal quartet.

I tell you I want to write a finale
lasting half an hour. Ha-ha!

A quartet becoming a quintet becoming a sextet.
On and on, and wider and wider.

All sounds multiplying and rising together,
and together becoming a sound entirely new.

I bet that's how God hears the world.

Millions of sounds ascending at once
and mixing in His ear

to become an unending music,
unimaginable to us.

That's our job! That is our job, we composers.

To combine the inner minds
of him and her, and her and him,

the thoughts of chambermaids and court composers,
and turn the audience into God.

[BLOWS RASPBERRY]

Sorry. I talk nonsense all day long.
It's incurable – ask Stanzerl.

My tongue is stupid.

But my heart isn't.

No. You're a good fellow
under all your nonsense. I know that.

He'll make a fine new Brother, won't he, Salieri?

Better than I, Baron.

Just try, my friend, to be more serious with your gifts.

[MOCK SERIOUSLY] Yes, OK, I'll try.
I'll give it a go. I will try.

– Buona fortuna, Mozart.
– Grazie, Signore.

Stop frowning, Frau Chamberlain. I'm a jackass.

It's easy to be friends with a jackass –
just shake his hoof.

– Hee-haw! Tell the emperor the opera's finished.
– Finished?

Right here in my noddle.
The rest's just scribbling. Goodbye.

Good day to you.

I'll make him proud of me!

You'll see.

[BLOWS RASPBERRY]

Oi!

– That young man really is...
– Very lively.

Intolerable.

[YELLS] Intolerable!

How could I block it?
How could I stop this opera of Figaro?

Incredible to hear that within six weeks
the Creature had completed the entire score.

Figaro is complete.
The first performance will be on May 1st.

– Really? So soon?
– There's no way we can stop it.

– I have an idea. Una piccola idea!
– What?

– Mi ha detto che c'è un balletto nel terzo atto?
– Si.

What is he saying?

E dimmi – non è vero che l'Imperatore
ha proibito il balletto nelle sue opere?

– Un balletto ... Ah!
– Precisamente.

Oh, capisco! Ma che meraviglia! Perfetto!
Veramente ingegnoso!

– What is it? What is he suggesting?
– See him at the theatre.

Of course. Immediately. I'd forgotten.
You are brilliant, Court Composer.

I? I have said nothing.

I must tell you I resent this extremely.

Mozart is right in some things. There is far too much
Italian chittero-chattero at this court.

Now please to inform me at once, what was just said.

Pazienza, my dear Chamberlain,
pazienza. Just wait and see.

– Mozart... Mozart!
– Yes, Herr Director.*

– A word with you, please? Right away.
– Certainly. What is it?

– I would like to see your score of Figaro.
– Oh, yes. Why?

Just bring it here to me, into my hand, please.

Now, tell me, did you know His Majesty
had expressly forbidden ballet in his operas?

– Ballet?
– Such as occurs in your third act.

That is not a ballet, Herr Director.
That is a dance as part of the wedding feast.

Exactly. A dance.

But the emperor doesn't mean to prohibit dancing
when it's part of the story.

That law was made to prevent the insertion of stupid
ballet, such as in French operas, and quite right too.

It is not for you, Herr Mozart,
to interpret the emperor's edicts, merely to obey them.

What are you doing? What are you doing, Excellency?

Taking out what should never have been put in.

Now, sir, perhaps in future
you will obey imperial commands.

But if all that goes,
there'll be a hole right at the climax of the story!

– Salieri! This Salieri's idea!
– Don't be absurd.

How did he know that? Nothing I had ever done
could possibly make him think of it on his own.

Had God given him the idea?

– It's a conspiracy. I can smell it. I can smell it!
– Control yourself.

What do you expect me to do?
The first performance is two days off!

Write it over. That's your forte, is it not,
writing at speed.

Not when the music's perfect!
Not when it's absolutely perfect just as it is!

I shall appeal to the emperor! I'll go to him myself!
I shall hold a rehearsal especially for him.

– The emperor does not attend rehearsals.
– He'll attend this one.

You mark my words, he'll come to this one!
Then he'll deal with you.

The issue is simple. Write your act again today
or withdraw the opera. That's final.

You shit-pot!

You woppy, foppy, wet-arsed, Italian-loving shit-pot!

Count Orsini-Rosenshit! Rosenclit! Rosencunt!

I'll hold the rehearsal, you'll see! The emperor
will come! You'll see! You'll see! You'll...

I am forbidden! I am forbidden!
But of course you already know that.

Know what?

No matter.

Mozart, permit me. If you wish, I can speak
to the emperor myself, ask him to attend a rehearsal.

You wouldn't!

I cannot promise that he will come,
but I can certainly try.

– [EMOTIONALLY] Oh, sir, thank you...
– Good day to you, sir.

Needless to say, I did nothing whatever in the matter.

Yet, to my total stupefaction, in the middle
of the last rehearsal of Figaro the very next day...

Fêtes and fireworks! Fêtes and fireworks!
Gentlemen, good afternoon!

Entirely against his usual practice,
the emperor appeared.

I can't wait for this, Mozart, I assure you!
Je prévois des merveilles!

Majesty!

What did this mean? Was this proof that God
had finally decided to defend Mozart against me?

Was He engaging with me at last?

I am so grateful to you for this,
I can barely express it.

Hush. Say nothing.

One thing about the event
certainly seemed more than coincidence.

Strangely, His Majesty had appeared at precisely
the moment when the dancers would have begun,

had not they and their music been entirely cut.

[♪ Marriage of Figaro: Ecco la Marcia: Act III]

CHORUS: ♪ Cantiamo Lodiamo
sì saggio signor!

♪ Cantiamo, lodiamo sì saggio signor!

♪ Sì saggio signor
Sì saggio signor

♪ Sì saggio signor! ♪

[♪ MUSIC STOPS]

I don't understand. Is it modern?

– No, Majesty.
– Then what?

The Herr Director has removed a dance
that would have occurred at this point.

Why was this done?

It's your own regulation, sire. No ballet in your opera.

This is not a ballet, Majesty. This is a dance as part
of the wedding feast, entirely necessary for the story.

Well, it certainly looks very odd the way it is.
I can't say I like it.

– Nor do I, Majesty.
– Do you like it, Rosenberg?

It's not a question of liking, Majesty.
Your own law decrees it.

Yes, but all the same, this is nonsense.
I mean, look at them up there!

They're like waxworks!

– Well, not exactly, Majesty.
– I don't like waxworks.

– Nor do I, Majesty.
– Well, who would? What do you say, Salieri?

Italians are fond of waxworks, Majesty.

Our religion is largely based upon them.

You are cattivo again, Court Composer.

Your Majesty, Count Rosenberg is very worried

that if this music is put back
it will create the most unfortunate precedent.

One will have thereafter
to endure hours of dancing in opera.

I think we can guard against that,
you know, Chamberlain.

I really think we can guard against hours of dancing.

– Please restore Herr Mozart's music.
– Majesty, I must insist...

[HOLLERS] You will oblige me, Rosenberg!
I wish to hear Mozart's music. Do you understand me?

Yes, Majesty.

Oh, Majesty! I thank you, I thank you...

– Yes, yes. A little less enthusiasm, I beg you!
– Excuse me.

[GROANS] Well, there it is.

So, Figaro was produced, in spite of all my efforts.

I sat in my box on May 1st 1786,
and watched it happen.

A conspicuous defeat for me,
and yet I was strangely excited.

FIGARO: [BASS-BARITONE]
♪ Non più andrai, farfallone amoroso

♪ Notte e giorno d'intorno girando

♪ Delle belle turbando il riposo

♪ Narcisetto, Adoncino d'amor

♪ Delle belle turbando il riposo

♪ Narcisetto, Adoncino d'amor ♪

My march! My poor march of welcome –
transformed by him to enchant the world forever!

Almost in your style, that last bit.

But more vulgar of course,
far more obvious than you would ever be.

Exactly!

Trembling, I heard the second act...
the restored third act... and the astounding fourth.

What shall I say to you who will one day
hear this last act for yourselves?

You will, because whatever else shall pass away,
this must remain.

♪ Ah, tutti contenti

♪ Saremo così

♪ Saremo così

♪ Ah, tu...

Ah, tu ...
[MUSIC UNDERSCORES]

SALIER: The scene was night in a summer's garden.

Pinprick stars gleamed down on shaking summerhouses.
Plotters glided behind pasteboard hedges.

I saw a woman, disguised in her maid's clothes,

hear her husband utter the first
tender words he'd offered her in years,

simply because he thinks she is her own servant.

Could one capture a realer moment?
And how, except in a net of pure artifice?

The disguises of opera were invented for Mozart.

The final reconciliation melted sight.

Through my tears, I saw the emperor...

..yawn!

Most ingenious, Mozart.
You're coming along nicely.

I do think we must omit encores in future. It really
makes things far too long. Make a note, Rosenberg.

– Majesty.
– Gentlemen, good night. Strack, attend me.

– MOZART: Salieri!
– Yes?

What do you think?
Do you think I'm 'coming along nicely'?

[VOICE BREAKING] I think the piece is extraordinary.

I think it is m...

..marvellous, yes.

I'll tell you what it is.

It is the best opera ever written, that's what it is.

And nobody else could have done it. Only me!

– VENTICELLO: Rosenberg is furious.
– VENTICELLO: He'll never forgive Mozart.

He'll do anything to get back at him.

So, it was not hard to get the piece cancelled.

I saw to it, through the person
of the resentful director,

that in the entire year Figaro was played only
nine times.

My defeat finally turned into a victory.

And God's response to my challenge
remained as inscrutable as ever.

Was He taking any notice of me at all?

Withdrawn! Absolutely no plans for its revival!

I commiserate with you, my friend.

But when the public does not like one's work,

one has to accept the fact gracefully,
and certainly they didn't.

– It's too complicated!
– Too tiresome!

All those morbid harmonies!

And never a good bang at the end of songs
so you know when to clap!

Obviously, I would not need to campaign too hard
against his operas in future.

I must concentrate on the man.

I decided to spend as much with him as possible,
to learn everything I could of his weaknesses.

I'll go to England.
England loves music. That's the answer!

We were yet again in the library
of the Baroness Waldstädten –

that room fated to be the scene
of ghastly encounters between us.

Again, too, the compensating crema al mascarpone.

I was there when I was a boy. They absolutely adored me.
I had more kisses than you've had cakes!

When I was a child, people loved me.

Perhaps they will again.
Why not go to London and try?

Because I have a wife and child and no money.

I wrote to Papa to ask him to take the boy off my hands
just for a few months so I could go, but he refused.

He's a very bitter man, of course.

After he'd finished showing me off around Europe
he never went anywhere himself

He just sat up in Salzburg year after year,
kissing the ring of the Fartbishop and lecturing me.

The real thing is, you see, he's jealous.

Under everything, he's jealous of me.
He'll never forgive me for being cleverer than he is.

I'll tell you a secret.

Leopold Mozart is just a jealous, dried-up old turd,
and I actually detest him

– Leopold Mozart?
– Leopold Mozart.

BOTH: Leopold Mozart is dead.

– Do not despair, my friend. Death is inevitable.
– [EMOTIONAL] How will I go now?

– How do you mean?
– In the world. There's no one else.

There's no one else who can see
the wickedness all around. I can't see it!.

He watched for me year after year, and I betrayed him.

– No!
– I talked against him.

I married where he begged me not,
I danced and played billiards and fooled about,

and he just sat there night after night
in an empty house, with no woman to care for him.

Wolfgang!
My dear Wolfgang, do not accuse yourself.

Lean upon me, if you care to.

– Lean upon me.
– [CRYING] Papa!

So rose the figure of the Ghost Father in
his next opera, Don Giovanni.

[♪ Don Giovanni: Overture]

A father more accusing than any in opera.

[BASS] ♪ Don Giovanni!

♪ A cenar teco... ♪

So rose the figure of a guilty libertine,
cast into hell.

I looked on astounded,
as from his ordinary life he made his art.

We were both ordinary men, he and I.

Yet he, from the ordinary, created legends.

And I, from legends, created only the ordinary.

Could I not have stopped my war? Shown him some pity?

Yes, my friends, of course, at any time –
if He above had shown me one drop of it.

Every day I set to work I prayed.
I still prayed, you understand,

'Make this one good in my ears!
Just one! One!'

But would He ever?

I heard my music calmed in convention,
not one breath of spirit to lift it off the shallows.

And I heard his, month after month,

the spirit singing through it
unstoppable to my ears alone.

I saw his comedy of the seduction of two sisters,
Così Fan Tutte, 'Thus do all women.'

Constanze and Aloysia immortalised,
two average girls transformed into divinities,

their sounds of surrender
sweeter than the psalms of Heaven.

♪ Ai nostri/vostri desir... ♪

Grant this to me!

Grant this to me!

'No! No, I do not need you, Salieri!

'I have Mozart!

'Better for you to be silent!'

[MOANING IN ANGUISH]

[STOPS MOANING, COLLECTS HIMSELF]

Teresa.

Katherina.

I had to stop him. But how?

Destitution! Reduce the man to destitution.
Starve out the God.

– How do you fare today?
– Badly. I have no money, and no prospect of any.

It would not be too hard, surely.

– We must find him a post.
– One danger! The emperor.

Majesty, I'm afraid there is nothing
available at the moment.

There's Chamber Composer, now that Gluck is dead.

Mozart to follow Gluck?

I won't have him say I drove him away.
You know what a tongue he has.

Then grant him Gluck's post, Majesty,
but not his salary. That would be wrong.

Gluck got 2,000 florins a year.
What should Mozart get?

200. Light payment, yes, but for light duties.

– Perfectly fair. I'm obliged to you, Court Composer.
– Majesty.

Easy.

Easily done.

Like most men obsessed with being thought generous,
the Emperor Joseph was quintessentially mean.

Mozart. Vous nous faites honneur!

It's a damned insult!
Not enough to keep a mouse in cheese for a week!

Regard it as a token, caro Herr.

When I was young they gave me snuff-boxes.
Now it's tokens!

And for what? Pom-pom, for fireworks!
Twang-twang for contredanzes!

I'm sorry it has made you so upset. I'd not have
suggested it if I'd known you'd be so distressed.

You suggested it?

My only regret is that... is that I was not able to do more.

– Sir, forgive me.
– Oh, no...

– You are a good man. I can see that now.
– No, please.

You are a truly kind man – and I'm a monstrous fool.

– No, please.
– You shame me. You excellent man!

No, no, no, – s'il vous plâit!
A little less enthusiasm.

[BOTH LAUGH]

Wolfgang! What's wrong?

I have cramps in my stomach sometimes.

– I'm sorry
– Excuse me, it's nothing really.

– I will see you soon again?
– Of course.

Why not come and visit me?

– I will... I promise!
– Bene.

– Bene.
– My friend. My new friend.

[CHUCKLING]

Now if ever was the moment for God to crush me.
I waited, and do you know what happened?

I had just ruined Mozart's career at court.
God rewarded me by granting my dearest wish.

– Kapellmeister Bonno.
– Kapellmeister Bonno is dead!

– You have been appointed...
– By Royal Decree...

– ..to fill his place!

First Royal and Imperial Kapellmeister to our court.

[♪ FANFARE]

– Bravo!
– Evviva, Salieri!

– Well done, Salieri!
– Dear Salieri.

Well, there it is.

I was now truly alarmed.
How long would I go unpunished?

– Mozart looks appalling.
– It must be galling of course.

I hear he's dosing himself constantly with medicine.

– For what?
– Envy, I imagine.

I saw him next in the Prater.

[SHRIEKING, WHOOPING]

["The Masked Man" by Slater,
strings underscore]

MOZART: Congratulations, sir!

Oh! Thank you. Thank you. Ah! And to you both!

Clearly, there was a change for the worse.

His eyes gleamed, oddly,
like a dog's when the light catches.

– I hear you are still not well, my friend.
– I'm not. My pains stay with me.

– How wretched! What can they be?
– Also, I sleep badly. I have bad dreams.

– Wolferl, he...
– Dreams?

Yes, always the same one.
A figure comes to me cloaked in grey – doing this.

It has no face. Just grey, like a mask.
What can it mean, do you think?

Surely, you do not believe in dreams?

– Ha! No, of course not, really.
– Surely you do not, Madame?

Oh, I never dream, sir.
Things are unpleasant enough to me awake.

Ha! It's all fancy, of course.

If Wolfgang had proper work he might dream less,
First Kapellmeister.

Stanzi!

Excuse us. We are well enough, thank you.
Come, dearest.

– He's growing freakish.
– No question.

Grey figures with no faces!

He broods too much on his father, I fancy,
plus his circumstances make him anxious.

– They've moved house again.
– To the Rauhensteingasse, number 970.

– They must be desperate.
– It's a real slum.

Does he make any money at all,
apart from his post?

– Nothing whatsoever.
– I hear he's starting to beg.

– They say he's written to 20 Brother Masons.
– Really?

And they're giving him money.

Of course! They would.

I had forgotten the Masons!
Naturally they'd relieve him, how stupid of me!

There could be no finally starving him
with the Masons there to help.

As long as he asked they'd keep supplying his wants.
How could I stop them? And quickly!

Lord Fugue is most displeased with him.

Is he?

[♪ SOMBRE CHIMES]

This is not good, Brother.
The Lodge was not created for you to beg from.

– What do you expect me to do?
– Give concerts, as you used to do.

I have no subscribers left, Baron.
I'm no longer fashionable.

I am not surprised. You write tasteless comedies
which give offence. I've warned you often enough.

– You have. I admit it.
– [SIGHS DEEPLY]

I will send you some fugues of Bach tomorrow.
You can arrange those for my Sunday Concert.

– You shall have a small fee.
– Oh, thank you, Baron.

– I cannot live by arranging Bach!
– SALIERI: A generous fellow.

All the same, I'll have to do it. If he were
to turn the Lodge against me, I'd be finished.

My Brother Masons virtually keep me now.

Never mind. I'll manage, you'll see!
Things are looking up already.

I've had a marvellous proposal from Schikaneder.
He's a new Member of this Lodge.

– Schikaneder? The actor?
– Yes. He owns a theatre in the suburbs.

– Well, more of a music hall, surely?
– Yes. He wants me to write a vaudeville.

Something for ordinary German people.
Isn't that a wonderful idea?

– He's offered me half the receipts when we open.
– Nothing in advance?

No, he said he couldn't afford it.
I know it's not much of an offer.

But a popular piece about brotherly love
could celebrate everything we believe in as Masons.

It certainly could. Why not put the Masons into it?

Into an opera? I couldn't!
All the same... what an idea!

Our rituals are secret, Wolfgang.

I needn't copy them exactly.
I could adapt them a little.

It would certainly be in a good cause.

– Brotherly love!
– Brotherly love!

Take courage, Wolfgang. This is a glorious idea.

It is. It really is, isn't it?

– Of course, say nothing till it's done.
– Not a word.

– Secret!
– Secret!

– Good.
– Good.

And if that did not finish him off
with the Masons, nothing would.

[TINKLING OF GLOCKENSPIEL]

[♪ Die Zauberflöte, Das Klinget so Herrlich]

♪ Das klinget so herrlich

♪ Das klinget so schön!

♪ Larala la la larala
La la larala!

♪ Nie hab ich so etwas
Gehört und gesehn!

♪ Larala la la larala
La la larala! ♪

– Mozart is pleased with himself.
– He's writing a secret opera.

– And won't tell anyone its theme.
– It's really tiresome.

He told me. He told me everything.

Initiation ceremonies, ceremonies with blindfolds,
all rituals copied from the Masons.

He sat at home preparing his own destruction,
a home where life grew daily more grim.

I'm cold. I'm cold all day.
It's surprising since we have no firewood.

Papa was right. We end exactly as he said, beggars.

– It's all his fault.
– What do you mean?

He kept you a baby all your life.

– I don't understand. You always loved Papa.
– I did?

Yes, you adored him. You told me so often.

I hated him.

– What?
– And he hated me.

That's absurd. He loved us both.
You're being extremely silly now.

– Am I?
– Yes. Yes, you are, little-wife-of-my-heart.

Do you remember the fire we had last night,
because it was so cold you couldn't get the ink wet?

You said, 'What a blaze!' Remember?
'What a blaze! All those old papers going up!'

Well, my dear, those old papers
were just your father's letters, that's all.

Every one he wrote since the day we married.

– What?
– Every one.

All the letters about what a ninny I am,
what a bad housekeeper I am! Every one!

– Stanzi.
– Shit on him! Shit on him!

– You bitch!
– At least he kept us warm! What else will do that?

Perhaps we should dance! You love to dance, Wolferl.
Let's dance! Dance to keep warm!

Write me a contredanze, Mozart.
It's your job to write dances, isn't it?

– ♪ Non più andrai, farfallone amoroso
– Don't! Don't!

– ♪ Notte e giorno d'intorno girando!
– Don't! Don't! Please, don't!

– ♪ Non più andrai, farfallone amoroso
– Don't, don't, don't, don't.

Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't,
don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't please!

Please!

[CRYING] Stanzi.

Stanzi-marini.

Look, here's a kiss! Where'd that come from?
Right out of that corner. Look, a kiss...

Get off!

[SOBBING]

– I'm frightened, Stanzi.
– I can't bear it. I can't bear much more of this.

Something awful's happening to me!

And the figure's like this now –
'Come here! Come here!'

It becomes realer and realer to me!

Stop it! Stop it, for God's sake!

It's me who's frightened... Me!

– You frighten me.
– No.

If you go on like this
I will leave you. I swear it.

– No.
– I mean it, I do.

Oh, God.

– News! She's been delivered.
– Unexpectedly.

– Of a boy.
– Poor little imp.

– To be born to that couple.
– In that room.

– With that money.
– And the father a baby himself.

– And now I hear, something else has happened.
– Even stranger.

– She's gone.
– How do you mean?

Stanzerl's gone away. Just for a while, she says.

She's taken the baby and gone to Baden, to the spa.
It will cost us the last of the money we have.

But why?

She's right to go. It's my fault.

– She thinks I'm mad.
– Surely not?

– Perhaps I am. I think I am. Yes.
– Wolfgang.

Let me tell you this! Last night I saw
the figure again, the figure in my dreams.

It stood before my table, all in grey,
its face still grey, still masked.

But this time, it spoke to me.

'Wolfgang Mozart – you must now write a Requiem Mass.
Take up your pen and begin!'

A Requiem? Who is this Requiem for?

I asked 'Who has died?'

It said, 'The work must be finished
when you see me next.'

Then it turned and left the room.

– This is morbid fancy, my friend.
– It had the force of real things!

To tell you the truth – I do not know
whether it happened in my head or out of it.

No wonder Stanzerl has gone. I frightened her away.
And now she'll miss the vaudeville.

You mean it's finished? So soon?

Oh, yes, music is easy. It's marriage that's hard.

I long to see it.

Would you come, truly? The theatre isn't grand.
No one from court will be there.

Do you think any of that matters to me?
I would travel anywhere for a work by you.

I am no substitute for your wife,
but I know someone who could be.

– Who?
– I'll tell you what, I'll bring Katherina.

– That'll cheer you up.
– Katherina!

If I remember correctly, you quite enjoyed her company.

– [BOTH LAUGH]
– BOTH: Signora!

So, off to the suburbs we went,
our strange band of three.

The First Kapellmeister – sleek as a cat.

His mistress – now grown fat and feathered,
like the great song-bird she'd become.

And demented Mozart – drunk on the cheap wine
which was now his constant habit.

You must be indulgent now.
This is my first piece of this kind.

We sat as he wished us to –
amongst ordinary Germans.

The smell of sweat and sausage was almost annihilating.

– This is, er... This is.. exciting, isn't it?
– Do you think so?

Yes! This is exactly the crowd
we should be writing for, not the dreary old court.

As always, you lead the way.

And as always, he did.

[BIRDSONG, CALL AND RESPONSE]

AUDIENCE: Ooh! [LAUGHING]

My pungent neighbours
rolled on their benches at the jokes.

And I alone in their midst heard... The Magic Flute.

[♪ ORCHESTRA BEGINS]

♪ Ich kann nichts tun, als dich beklagen
Weil ich zu schwach zu helfen bin

♪ Hm hm hm hm hm hm hm!

♪ Papagena! Papagena!

♪ Pa pa Papagena!

♪ Papagena! Papagena!

♪ Pa pa Papagena

[MUSIC SLOWS]

♪ Zum Leiden bin ich auserkoren

♪ Denn meine Tochter fehlet mir

♪ Durch sie ging all mein Glück verloren

♪ Ach, ich fuh'l, es ist verschwunden

♪ Ewig hin der liebes Glück!

[STRINGS INTENSIFY]

♪ Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen

♪ Tod und Verzweiflung

♪ Tod und Verzweiflung flammet um mich her!

♪ Fühlt nicht durch dich

♪ Sarastro Todesschmerzen!

♪ Sarastro Todesschmerzen!

♪ So bist du meine Tochter nimmermehr

♪ So bist du meine

♪ Meine Tochter nimmermehr

[♪ COLORATURA ORNAMENTATION]

♪ Meine Tochter nimmermehr! ♪

He had put the Masons into it right enough – but how?

He had turned them into an Order of Eternal Priests.

– [♪ Heil Sei Euch Geweihten]
– I heard voices calling out of ancient temples.

I saw a vast sun rise on a timeless land,
where animals danced and children floated.

And by its rays all the poisons we feed each other
drawn up and burnt away.

And in this sun, behold, I saw his father.
No more an accusing figure, but forgiving.

The Highest Priest of the Order –
his hand extended to the world in love.

Wolfgang feared Leopold no longer,
and a final legend was born.

♪ Dank...

Oh, the sound!

♪ Dank!

The sound of that new-found peace within him,
mocking my undiminished pain!

♪ Dank!

♪ Dank!

There was the Magic Flute! There beside me!

Mozart the magic flute,
and God the relentless player.

[DISTANT APPLAUSE]

How long could he stand it, this Creature?
So frail, so palpably mortal.

And what was this I was suddenly feeling?

Could it be pity?

Never!

– Mozart?
– Baron! You here!

– How wonderful of you to come!
– I had of course suggested it.

– What have you done?
– Excellency?

– You have put our rituals into a vulgar show.
– No, sir...

They are plain for all to see! And to laugh at!

– You have betrayed the Order.
– No!

– Baron...
– Don't speak for him, Salieri.

You were ever a cruel vulgarian we hoped to mend.
Stupid, hopeless task!

Now you are a betrayer as well.
I shall never forgive you. And depend upon it.

I shall ensure that no Freemason or person of
distinction will do so in Vienna so long as I have life.

– Baron, please, I must speak...
– No, sir! Leave alone!

I did not look for this reward, Mozart.

Never speak to me.

ENSEMBLE: Oooooooh!

Wolfgang... My dear Wolfgang, all is not lost.

But of course it was!

[ENSEMBLE, SALIERI LAUGH]

He was now broken, ruined,
shunned by all men of influence.

He did not even get his half receipts for the opera.

– Schikaneder pays him nothing.
– Schikaneder cheats him.

– Gives him enough for liquor.
– And keeps all the rest.

[LAUGHING] I couldn't have managed it better myself.

– And as for Mozart.
– The poor fellow.

What about him? I've not heard from him in days.
What is he doing?

BOTH: We don't know.

– He's become really odd, sir.
– Turned dreadfully strange.

– Stays in his apartment all day.
– Burns his candle all night.

– But appears over and over at his window.
– Stares wildly down the street.

– Twitching!
– Trembling!

– Like a man deeply disordered.
– Or one driven out of his mind.

– In fact, the rumour is, sir...
– The rumour is, sir...

What is it? Say it!

Our Wolfgang has lost his wits.

Was it possible? Could it be true?

Madness? I'd never thought of that –
him retreating into that terrible refuge.

Yet, there would lie my victory.
Loss of wits must surely mean loss of talent!

Triumph surged up through me.
He was disarmed at last!

And at the same moment came chill,
a deep, spreading chill.

Was this what I had actually done,
driven a man mad?

I had to see, know for myself. Spy on him unseen
and quickly! I could not keep away.

And so it was, incredibly late
one freezing night in November 1791,

I found myself hurrying secretly across the empty city,
under a churning sky and hidden moon,

seeking his lodgings where I had never been,
no notion what I might see.

There was my goal, that dingy alley,
the Rauhensteingasse.

Only one window alight, above me.

Stealthily, I stationed myself to watch it
from the shadows below,

but instantly, as if sensing me, he appeared.

A face drawn and distorted by fear,

staring straight down at my motionless figure,
standing deep-cloaked against the cold.

A cry came faintly from behind the filthy glass,
and through it his mouth began shaping frenzied words.

'More! More! More time! Time! Oh please!'

I stood frozen in alarm,
and then suddenly, without warning,

the moon sprang full out from behind a cloud,
and spilled its merciless light all down me.

He saw instantly who it was, and there was
nothing for it but to greet him cheerfully.

Signore! How wonderful of you to come!

Come up, come up and join in the fun!

There's nothing to eat, not even a bun!

And alas and alack, there's nothing to drink
but bottles and bottles and bottles of ink!

Ascend if you please!

Will-less, I climbed his stairs with stone feet.
He was waiting at the top.

A thousand welcomes to you, sir.

Enter, if you please, the Palazzo Amadeo!

Now for the first time I saw the place
to which I had consigned him.

A filthy chamber in total disorder.

Empty bottles everywhere, discarded linen,
and across the floor

a fresh pavement of inky manuscripts,
stirring in icy gusts from ill-fitting windows.

I knew at once what these must be.

Tell me, my friend, what are you doing here so late?
It is late, isn't it?

I've come to see you. I've, er... I've been concerned.

Surely you are not working at this hour?

No, not really.

– Then what's all this?
– Nothing! Just silliness.

– A new piece.
– The Requiem! It is the Requiem, isn't it?

I know. I know it's stupid.
That Messenger isn't real, you told me.

All the same, there's no point
in taking chances, is there?

If he came too soon, that Messenger,
and there was nothing for him, I'd look foolish.

Time was, I could have finished a Mass in a week.

Not any more. To be exact, I'm feeling very poorly.

– My friend.
– It's true.

My body hurts all day.

My joints, my head... And I know why.

– I've been poisoned.
– Poisoned?

Yes. They say the Masons poison people
who offend them. I didn't say that!

I'll tell you one thing, though.

If he comes too soon, that Messenger,
I'll say to his face,

'Tell your master from me, if He takes me too quick,
there won't be a Mass – so there!'

– He can hiss at me all he likes.
– My friend, what are you saying?

Isn't it obvious? It's for me, that's all.

– What is?
– The Mass... The Mass.

It's for me. For myself.
It's ordered – I am to write my own!

Why order a Requiem if nobody's going to die?

You know, the worst thing is denying me proper time.

I've never done that before in my life –
offered unfinished work.

I wonder, sir, would you oblige me?

Just take a look at it, just a page or two,
and tell me if it's worthy.

You see, I can't tell any more.

Everything's leaving me.
All the sounds, they're running away.

My hand is tired.

It has written too much,
it can't catch the notes now.

The Kyrie's already finished.
You need only look at that.

Kyrie the first theme, Eleison the second –
both together make a double fugue.

My father would have approved of that, at least.

He'd say, 'Only you, my boy.
Only you could have done this.'

Please. Please.

Please, please.

[♪ Requiem Mass in D minor begins]

[MOZART SPLUTTERING]

Oh, it began so well, my life.

Once the world was so full, so happy.

All the journeys, all the carriages,
all the rooms full of smiles.

Everybody smiled at me once –
the king at Schönbrunn, the princess at Versailles.

All lit my way personally to the keyboard.

Papa bowing, bowing, bowing with such joy.

'Chevalier Mozart, my miraculous son!'

Why has it all gone? Was I so wicked?

Why must I go?

[♪ MUSIC ENDS ABRUPTLY]

It's bad? It's bad, isn't it?

Bad? It will help the ages to mourn.

Oh, grazie. Grazie, Signore!

What could I say? In my hands I held
a terrible contradiction that only art can show.

Something immortal, stinking of death.
Indestructible, yet rotting.

I was suddenly seized
by an overwhelming sense of horror.

I bless you, Signore.

Who was this for, this appalling music?
Not himself. Of course not himself!

What need to mourn a man who will live for ever?

– I stood there...
– [♪ Requiem begins]

..his despairing Mass sounding over
and over in my head its gigantic lamentation.

And I knew absolutely who this was for!

In ten years of unrelenting spite,
I had destroyed myself!

And then, whatever feelings
still left uncorrupted in me rose up, crying.

'End this! Before it is too late!

'Confess! Confess to him! Get from him
whatever absolution he can possibly grant.

'He – he alone! – the Creature you have broken.
How else can you live on after?'

– Wolfgang.
– [QUIETLY SOBBING]

Wolfgang, you must hear me now.

You are right. You are poisoned. It is true.

– What do you mean?
– By me.

No one else. We are both poisoned together.

– I don't understand.
– I with you. And you with me.

I eat what God gives me. Dose after dose.
For all life! His poison!

Eccomi. Antonio Salieri! Il tuo Nemico!
Il tuo Assassino! La tua Morte!

– [WEAKLY] Bravo! Bravissimo, Signore.
– Wolfgang...

Signore, I think perhaps you are a little tiddly?

– Wolfgang!
– You had some before you came, I thought so.

– Wolfgang... Wolfgang...
– Tiddly-widdly. Tiddly-widdly-piddly...

Listen! Listen, and understand
what has been done to you!

Why are you being like this?
Why have you come here? What do you want?

Don't you know at all what I have endured from you?
From the day you appeared I have lived in hell.

What I did to you was nothing to what you did to me.

Stop this. I don't know what you're saying.

My God smiled and permitted it!
Whatever I did, you would fill the world.

You left me with nothing!

And He does not care, Amadeus.
God does not care.

He cares nothing for whom He uses,
and nothing for whom He denies.

– We are equal in that, at least.
– Signore, stop this, please. You're frightening me.

– You're frightening me.
– [LAUGHING]

– Be merciful, therefore! No, no, be merciful!
– You're frightening. You're frightening.

Be merciful. Be merciful!

Show mercy. Show... show mercy.

Show, show mercy – because we can!

That is for us alone to do – us, not Him! He can't.

Grant me forgiveness, Wolfgang.
For pity's sake. You have to! You must!

– You must...
– No!

You go now! Go! This is stupid!

Wolfgang? Wolfgang, hear me one last time!
I am begging you on my knees. Grant me absolution.

L'assoluzione!

L'assoluzione!

For all my sins against you, damages unnumbered,
slanders unnumbered, foul thoughts unnumbered,

endless injuries and endless wrongs –
absolve my wicked soul!

Dammi! Dammi... t'imploro!

L'assoluzione! L'assoluzione! Amadeus...

Amadeus! L'assoluzione!

Amadeus.

Oragna figata fa...

Marina gamina fa...

– [SALIERI LAUGHING]
– Oragna figata fa, Marina gamina fa...

♪ Marina gamina fa...

♪ Oragna figata fa

[GENTLY SOBBING]

Reduce the man – reduce the God.
Behold my vow fulfilled.

The profoundest voice in the universe
reduced to a nursery tune.

[♪ "Lacrimosa" – underscore]

CONSTANZE: Wolfi?

– I'm back!
– Stanzi!

Yes, my love! Little husband of my heart!

♪ Lacrimosa... ♪

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry...

Oh, my dear one. Come with me.
Come now. There, there...

Salieri has killed me.

– Yes, my dear.
– He has. He told me.

♪ ..Qua resurget ex favilla
Judicandus homo reus ... ♪

They say he still tries to finish that Mass.

But little wife won't let him any more.

♪ Qua resurget ex favilla... ♪

Can you hear me?

Try to, Wolferl... Wolfi-polfi... Try to hear.

If I've been a bore, if I've nagged a bit about money,
it didn't mean anything.

It's only because I'm spoilt.
You spoiled me, lovey.

Just don't leave us
because wouldn't know what to do without you.

And you wouldn't know much either,
up in Heaven, without us, you soppy thing.

You can't even cut up
your own meat without help.

I have looked after you, you must admit that.

And I've given you fun, too – quite a lot really.

Are you listening?

[♪ MUSIC BUILDING]

Know one thing. It was the best day of my life
when you married me,

and as long as I live
I'll be the most honoured woman in the world.

Can you hear me?

♪ Amen ♪

The death certificate said kidney failure,
hastened by exposure to cold.

Generous Lord Fugue paid for a pauper's funeral,
20 corpses, an unmarked lime-pit.

What did I feel? Pity!

[VOICE BREAKING] Pity, at last,
for the creature I had helped to destroy.

I felt the pity my God can never feel.
I weakened God's flute to a thinness.

God blew – as He must – without cease.
The flute split in the mouth of His insatiable need.

And so I live on in the city of musicians,
reverenced by all.

On and on and on and on

and on and on and on and on and on and on.

For 32 years.

And slowly,
I understood the nature of God's punishment.

What had I asked for in that church as a boy?
Was it not fame? Well, now I had it.

I was to become, quite simply,
the most famous musician in Europe.

I was to be buried in fame!
Bricked up in fame! Embalmed in fame!

This was my sentence – I must endure
32 years of being called 'distinguished'

by people incapable of distinguishing.

And when my nose had been rubbed in fame to vomiting –
receptions, awards, civic medals, and chains –

suddenly, His masterstroke!

It would all be taken from me, every scrap.

[♪ Mozart's Symphony No. 41 in C major]

Mozart's music would sound everywhere –
and mine in no place on Earth.

I must survive to see myself become... extinct!

Nemico dei Nemici! Dio implacabile!

[BELL TOLLING]

[GROANS]

Dawn has come. [GROANS] I must release you.

One moment of violence and it's over.

You see, I cannot accept this –
to be sucked into oblivion, not even my name remembered.

No, I did not live on this Earth
to become His joke for eternity.

I have one trick left me – see how He takes it.

All this week... [GROANING]
..I have been shouting about murder.

You heard me yourselves,
do you remember?

Perdonami, Mozart! Il tuo assassino ti chiede perdono!

I did this deliberately.

– My servants carried the news into the streets.
– Salieri!

– And the streets repeated it to themselves.
– [VOICES MUTTERING] Salieri. Salieri.

And now my name is on every tongue.

Vienna, city of scandals,
has a scandal worthy of it at last.

Salieri! Assassin!

Well, my friends, now they all will know for sure.

They will learn of my dreadful death,
and believe the lie forever.

After today, whenever men speak Mozart's name with love,
they will speak mine with loathing.

As his name grows in the world, so will mine –
if not in fame, then in infamy.

♪ I'm going to be immortal after all! ♪

♪ And He is powerless to prevent it ♪

So, Signore – see now if man is mocked!

Amici cari. I was born a pair of ears, and nothing more.

It is only through hearing music that I know God exists.
Only through playing music that I could worship.

All around me men hunger for general rights.
I hungered only for particular notes.

They seek liberty for mankind.
I sought only slavery for myself.

To be owned, ordered and exhausted
by an absolute – music.

This was denied me – and with it all meaning.

Now I go to become a ghost myself.

I will stand in the shadows
when you come to this Earth in your turns.

And when you feel the dreadful bite of your failures,
and hear the taunting of an uncaring, unattainable God,

I will whisper my name to you.

'Antonio Salieri – Patron Saint of Mediocrities!'

And in the depths of your downcastness,
you can pray to me.

And I will forgive you.

Vi saluto.

[♪ "Maurerische Trauermusik" in C minor by Mozart]

– Salieri has cut his throat.
– But is still alive.

In the frenzy of his imagination he keeps claiming
that he is guilty for Mozart's death,

and made away with him by poison.

The rambling of the mind believed in truth
by no one but the deluded old man himself.

– I don't believe it.
– I don't believe it.

No one believes it in the world!

Mediocrities everywhere,

now and to come,

I absolve you all!

Amen.

[♪ FINAL FOUR CHORDS]

(APPLAUSE)