#amadeus 1980

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JANE SEYMOUR as Constanze Weber in Amadeus on Broadway (dir. Peter Hall, 1980-83)

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As Salieri in Amadeus, These Were the 3 Most-Asked Questions of Ian McKellen

(Ian McKellen, Playbill; photography by Martha Swope)

There is much talking to the audience, sometimes with the charm and chutzpah of a stand-up comic; often with the aggression and bile of a psychopath. I have to cajole and attack, to whisper and to declaim. Paul Scofield, playing the part in London, says it’s more wearying than King Lear. Yet talking afterwards in my dressing room or at the stage door (and how refreshing is Broadway’s enthusiasm after the polite approval of English audiences), I am repeatedly asked the same three questions about the part. Question 1: What on earth do you think about as you wait for the show to begin? Answer: I do a few little voice exercises; arrange my long robe so it won’t, hopefully, entangle in the wheels of my chair; and then go to sleep. Question 2: What are those cakes you eat on stage? Answer: They are made principally of yogurt and Cool Whip. (And for that admission, I don’t hope to receive from the manufactuers a free lifetime’s supply of the icky combination!) Question 3: Did you do a lot of research into the life of the real Salieri, whom you portray? The answer to that is less simple. Antonio Salieri was the most famous musician of the 18th century, well-paid and much decorated. Yet such is the transience of riches and success (and such is the theme of Peter Shaffer’s play) that had I wanted to research the true life story of my character, I could have found little other than a portrait or two and a few paragraphs in the numerous biographies of Mozart. The point is that until Amadeus, Salieri was no longer at all well-known: so I was happy to rely on Shaffer’s research and to know that my responsibility was to play only his tune and not add any new themes of my own. (Suppose I had discovered that the original Salieri had an aversion to cakes!)

(December 17, 2020)

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She's on Broadway as Mozart's Wife

(Alvin Klein, The New York Times)

In her own fashion, the actress Suzanne Lederer was herself chasing Constanze. ''I've been after this part ever since Peter wrote it - I was the second choice the first time around,'' she declared recently, recalling her disappointment when ''they decided to hire British actors'' for the play's New York opening in December 1980. [...] ''We've added more sex and violence,'' she said with a giggle. ''I'm thrown around like crazy. It's very visceral and tactile and I love it. I used to be afraid of falling, but I'm not anymore. The floor seems so much closer after doing this show.'' [...] ''And before Constanze, I knew nothing about classical music. Now I listen to Mozart and say, 'Hey, my husband wrote that.' ''

(August 8, 1982)

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Tim Curry Interview: Time Warp to Lambeth Walk

(Steve Warren, Update)

There were other stage, screen and television roles, but his next big success was as Mozart in the Broadway production of Amadeus. He and playwright Peter Shaffer were good friends, he says. "I used to go over for dinner every Sunday while he was writing it, but when you're in the theatre you don't talk about those things." Shaffer had him in mind for the role when he was writing it, Curry claims, but the director cast Simon Callow in the London production before Curry had a chance at it. He tried to see the show but it was sold out, and happened to be reading it the next day when Shaffer called to talk to him about doing it in New York. As to the play's vulgar, irreverent portrait of Mozart, Curry believes it to be accurate. "Have you read his letters? They're just crammed with fart jokes and bum jokes."

(December 23, 1987)

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"An actress in the grand tradition -- who can laugh at herself"

(Arthur Unger, Christian Science Monitor)

In the Peter Schaffer [sic] play "Amadeus" Jane plays the part of Constanze Weber, the playful wife of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who tries to use her mousy wiles to persuade Antonio Salieri to improve the lot of her husband, then leaves Mozart, only to return at his demise. Did Miss Seymour have trouble getting the part, overcoming prejudice against her because of her previous roles in pop American TV series? She laughs and the eyes sparkle with the memory: "No! Because the director had never heard of me or seen any of my work. I was just No. 637 who walked on stage to audition. When he asked me where I'd had my training, I told him, 'In my own form of repertory -- trying to survive in American television.'" There have been various interpretations of the play. What does Mrs. Mozart think about it? Jane turns solemn for a moment. The sparkle in the eyes turns cool. "I believe the play is about how everyone has to learn to live with the mediocrity that surrounds us all in a very large part of our lives. There will always be a genius, either in our own field or another field, that we would wish to be. But we must learn to settle for whatever it is that we have. That's the message Schaffer meant."

(February 9, 1981)

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"Mozart's World: From London to Broadway"

(Harold C. Schonberg, illustration by Al Hirschfeld; The New York Times)

With all the hundreds and hundreds of books and studies written about Mozart, there still is some mystery about the man. One thing musicologists do know. He was not the delicate, angelic figure the 19th century made him out to be. In any case, Mr. Shaffer has not even attempted to give us an idealized portrait. Early in its London run the play irritated and actually offended some music-lovers and critics who prefer to think of Mozart as the Raphael of music, or any of the other Romantic conceptions about the man who may well have been the greatest musical genius who ever walked the earth. When the play opens on Wednesday at the Broadhurst, New York audiences are going to take the measure of Mozart as seen through the vision of a dramatist who spent three years reading everything about Mozart ever written in English. And what emerges? Mozart as a child-man. A Mozart with an anal fixation. A Mozart as a permanent adolescent. A Mozart who used foul language, who had a sharp tongue, who was notably ungenerous about his colleagues, who was a womanizer and, at the end, a poverty-stricken alcoholic. But also a Mozart true to himself and his musical vision. Whatever Mozart was as a man — in his real life as in the play — in music he was pure.

(December 14, 1980)

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"NOTES ON PEOPLE: A Mozart Immersion"

(Albin Krebs and Robert Mcg. Thomas Jr, The New York Times)

In Philadelphia this week to rehearse with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra for their concert next Tuesday in New York's Carnegie Hall, James Galway, the flutist, decided it was time to see the play ''Amadeus'' again. The reason is that he is to be the soloist for the orchestra's performance of the Mozart Flute Concerto No. 2 in D, and the play is all about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mr. Galway had seen it twice in London, but, after all-day rehearsals of the Mozart concerto, he rushed up to New York to see the play Wednesday night. ''Seeing the composer come alive on stage puts me in the proper spirit to play Mozart,'' Mr. Galway told Peter Firth, who plays the composer, in a backstage visit after the performance. "I understand the composer and his music more each time I see the play.'' Mr. Firth had to decline Mr. Galway's invitation to hear him play Mozart, since he'll be playing Mozart himself in his own way at the time, onstage. So Mr. Galway whipped out his flute and gave Mr. Firth a miniversion of the Mozart concerto, right there in the actor's dressing room.

(October 9, 1981)