{"id":97,"date":"2026-05-20T15:36:43","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T15:36:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=97"},"modified":"2026-05-20T15:36:43","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T15:36:43","slug":"can-mozart-and-salieri-work-it-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=97","title":{"rendered":"Can Mozart and Salieri Work It Out?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Poor Antonio Salieri. In other circumstances, history (or, at least, classical-music buffs) would remember him as Kapellmeister to the Emperor of Austria, a skilled court composer of some forty operas, and a mentor to Beethoven and Schubert. But he had the rotten luck of being eclipsed by a younger rival, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Despite evidence that the two got along well enough, rumors spread in Vienna after Mozart\u2019s death that Salieri had poisoned him. In 1979, the myth of Salieri\u2019s malicious envy inspired Peter Shaffer\u2019s play \u201cAmadeus,\u201d which cast Mozart as a spunky wunderkind and Salieri as the scheming \u201cpatron saint of mediocrities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Shaggy\u2019s Boombastic Pilates Session<\/a><\/p>\n

Salieri\u2019s bad rap was solidified in 1984, when Milo\u0161 Forman turned \u201cAmadeus\u201d into an Oscar-winning film. Now comes a sumptuous five-part miniseries, which aired on British television last year and has just come to Starz, with Will Sharpe as Mozart and Paul Bettany as Salieri. The other day, both actors found themselves at the Morgan Library & Museum, in midtown. Sharpe, known for his roles on \u201cThe White Lotus\u201d and \u201cToo Much,\u201d had his hair gelled into a rock-star shag; Bettany, a fixture of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, wore hip glasses and a leather jacket. Their stop in New York happened to coincide with the Morgan\u2019s exhibition \u201cWolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Treasures from the Mozarteum Foundation of Salzburg.\u201d Many of the artifacts were visiting the United States for the first time.<\/p>\n

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The actors were greeted by the exhibition\u2019s curator, Robin McClellan, who led them to Mozart\u2019s childhood violin, encased in glass. \u201cWe had a nine-year-old prodigy from Juilliard come and play it,\u201d he said. Across the hall was Mozart\u2019s clavichord, on which he wrote the Requiem. \u201cHe was composing on his deathbed,\u201d McClellan continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it true that he swelled up like a\u00a0balloon at the end of his life?\u201d Sharpe asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s<\/em> your favorite bit?\u201d Bettany teased. Both actors mimed inflating like balloons.<\/p>\n

Past the violin was an oil painting of the child Mozart entertaining nobles at the Maison du Temple. \u201cIs this really annoying, that there isn\u2019t a Salieri exhibition?\u201d Sharpe ribbed his co-star.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hoping to undermine this one,\u201d Bettany retorted.<\/p>\n

They paused by a portrait of young Mozart at his keyboard, in a bright-red jacket. (\u201cHe loved fancy clothing,\u201d McClellan said.) In \u201cAmadeus,\u201d Sharpe wears lots of red, while Bettany wears cooler colors. \u201cThere was one red look I liked in particular,\u201d Sharpe recalled. \u201cAt one point, I was, like, \u2018Can I just wear this all the time, for simplicity?\u2019\u00a0\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cLaziest actor you\u2019ve ever met,\u201d Bettany deadpanned. Nearby were manuscripts of nine symphonies that Mozart wrote within two years, in his late teens. Bettany snapped photos. \u201cMy son\u2019s a composer\u201d\u2014Stellan Connelly Bettany, his older child with the actress Jennifer Connelly, is at the Royal College of Music\u2014\u201cand he\u2019s only written one symphony this year!\u201d<\/p>\n

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They passed the clavichord, which still had ink stains on it, presumably from late nights at the keyboard. Neither actor has had much musical experience. Bettany, as a London teen, used to busk by Westminster Pier. \u201cYou would get very adept at profiling people,\u201d he said. \u201cOh, they\u2019re French. I\u2019m going to play the Cure!<\/em> Because the Cure was huge in France.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sharpe, also a native Londoner, was in a garage band with his brother, originally called Phosphene\u2014the term for sparks of light you see with your eyes closed. (\u201cAwful name,\u201d Sharpe admitted.) For \u201cAmadeus,\u201d the actors practiced piano for months before filming, in Hungary. \u201cThen, when we got to Budapest, we were playing on fortepianos, where the keys are quite a bit smaller, so suddenly it got doubly difficult again,\u201d Sharpe recalled, eying Mozart\u2019s keys.<\/p>\n

Viewing Mozart\u2019s Piano Concerto No. 21, from 1785, McClellan said, \u201cI\u2019ll\u00a0just mention my quibble with your series, for what it\u2019s worth: the manuscripts didn\u2019t\u00a0look like the actual manuscripts.\u201d He turned sheepish. \u201cI\u2019m not trying to be a jerk.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo clarify, Will and I didn\u2019t make them,\u201d Bettany said.<\/p>\n

They reached a tiny, oval-shaped engraving of Salieri. Finally! \u201cSo, you couldn\u2019t find a smaller one?\u201d Bettany said. He was feeling defensive. Salieri\u2019s own Requiem was \u201cpretty good,\u201d he noted. \u201cHe was also a mensch. He really supported young musicians.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI confess to a slight Mozart bias in the choice of materials in the show,\u201d McClellan offered. Past Mozart\u2019s wallet and walking stick, they arrived at a display addressing the Salieri myth. There was an illustrated edition of Alexander Pushkin\u2019s 1830 play \u201cMozart and Salieri\u201d; the score of a Rimsky-Korsakov opera based on it; and an \u201cAmadeus\u201d poster signed by F. Murray Abraham, who played Salieri in the film. \u201cWe had him here for a private event, and he made sure to let everyone know that he did not kill Mozart,\u201d McClellan said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat makes Salieri a great antagonist is that he\u2019s eminently relatable,\u201d Bettany said. \u201cThere are few geniuses, but there\u2019s a lot of mediocrity around. Every office in the world has a Salieri.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should have an exhibition celebrating mediocrity in all its guises,\u201d McClellan proposed.<\/p>\n

Read more Where the Met Gala Really Begins<\/a><\/p>\n

Bettany grinned: \u201cI\u2019ll host it!\u201d\u00a0\u2666<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the Morgan Library\u2019s Mozart exhibition, Will Sharpe and Paul Bettany dish about playing classical music\u2019s most notorious rivals, on Starz\u2019s new \u201cAmadeus\u201d reboot, Michael Schulman writes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":96,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dept-of-mediocrity"],"yoast_head":"\nCan Mozart and Salieri Work It Out? - City Relocation News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=97\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Can Mozart and Salieri Work It Out? 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