Amadeus

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

Poetry in motion, a symphony in color punctuated by notes Mozart heard in his head and chords Salieri struggled to find, a stylized kaleidoscope of voices from the past come together for The Denver Center Theatre Company’s magnificent production of Amadeus now playing at the Stage Theatre in the Bonfils complex.

Douglas Harmsen as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Stephanie Cozart as Constanze Weber in the Denver Center Theatre Company production of Amadeus. Photo by Terry Shapiro

Directed by Kent Thompson this production should be a must see for those who know and love Mozart’s music, for those who have barely heard of him, for those who know the music but have no idea who the man behind the music really is.

On an absolutely gorgeous set designed by John Iacovetti that takes the breath away the moment one lays eyes on it, with a spectacular lighting design by Rachel Rudin including over 300 lighting cues, Peter Shaffer’s play Amadeus reaches across the centuries coming to pulsating life. There are parts of human nature that just can’t seem to change no matter how far the mind reaches into the imagination to develop technology, educational patterns, or even understands the laws of physics.

Jealousy all too often rules the heart, and all too often wins.

Antonio Salieri had it all: admiration for his compositions, appointed Imperial Royal Kapellmeister in 1788, claimed Beethoven, List, Schubert, and Mozart’s younger son Franz Xaver as his students.

Ironically, the world forgot his music until the 1984 movie Amadeus won eight Academy awards including Best Picture. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart became one of the most beloved composers of all time.

Brent Harris wraps himself in Salieri’s psyche giving a breath-taking performance. On stage for the entire production, Harris allows Salieri to tell his side of the story beginning shortly before his death transporting time to the younger man struggling over competition with the young Mozart.

The staging flows in rhythmic transition from narration to specific events. Wanting to conjure up the ghosts of the future, he grapples over the accusation he poisoned Mozart 32 years before. An old man failing in health, plagued by guilt, rattled in confusion, Salieri ponders “what must I do to make you visible?” concluding an Invocation will do it. “that’s how it’s done in opera.” When the lights come up on the audience, he’s delighted. “It worked. I can see you.”

More than anything Salieri wanted fame in one special way. “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!…, Music is God’s art.” He made a pact with God. If God would write his music through him, he would have what he wanted. He took his words to heart believing God confirmed the pact. Music came to him with scratching out notes and re-writing, and struggle. What this must have done to him when he discovered a young upstart who heard music in his head even when he played billiards writing it out in perfection, not a note out of place. What was even worse for Salieri was this young upstart who began composing when he was five years old was a child in a man’s body.

Douglas Harmsen embodies the man-child playing silly games, always on stage as the buffoon, poking fun at court etiquette, giggling with delight over high officials stumbling over his pranks, laughing hysterical over his obscenities, unaware and uncaring he offended anyone. Genius flowed through Mozart. Salieri heard God in the perfect music of this uncouth childish excuse for a musician. Focusing his anger on God more than Mozart, Salieri felt betrayed, and obsessed.

Thompson’s technique stuns as starkly as Shaffer’s brilliant writing that climbs inside the minds of these 18th Century historical figures, as dramatically as the artists execute the personalities.

With twisted humor, comical countenance, and tongues sharpened into two-edged swords Salieri’s two Venticelli’s, which he calls the Little Winds, (David Ivers and Sam Gregory) spies for Salieri with treasured gossip. Ivers and Gregory work hand in glove as though connected at the hip, marionettes worked by the same hand, they dig and smirk with dreadful glee.

Erect and stone-faced, Kathleen Brady bows to her artistic expertise as Salieri’s wife, Teresa. By her stance Brady reveals the cold and honorable relationship between the two. In love with his star pupil, Katherina Cavalieri beautifully played by Anne Marie Nest, he remains faithful to his wife until Mozart drives him over the edge. This beautiful singer belongs to Salieri. She’s his pupil, and the genius whippersnapper engages her in an opera.

The chorus of voices reflecting attitudes of outside forces accomplishes something extraordinary. One voice maintaining individuality in their presence, emulating an aura only proficient artists can claim.

Stephanie Cozart deliciously encompasses Constanze Weber, the light in Mozart’s life who after a struggle becomes his wife. Fearing his father will refuse to bless the union, Mozart straddles the fear and his love. The fear of his father haunts Mozart for the rest of his life, and Salieri grabs onto the fear with determined glee.

Bill Christ writes dull stupidity all over Emperor Joseph II’s face. It is Joseph who commissioned Mozart to write an Italian comic opera, which the luminous composer does with The Abduction of Seraglio only to have the Emperor complain “there are too many notes,” which has to compete for one of the funniest lines in the entire production. Hysterically funny because allegedly it’s true.

Amadeus begins and ends in the year 1823, two years before Salieri’s death, looking back to 1781-1791 in Vienna. David Kay Mickelsen designed the delectable brocade costumes so prevalent in that era with Amadeus caring little about what he wore and how he looked.

Numerous compositions by Salieri and Mozart are heard throughout the production adding historical significance to the stylized glance into history’s moment.

Count Johann Kilian von Strack (Randy Moore), Count Franz Orsini-Rosenberg, (Michael Mandeti), Baron Gottfried Van Swieten (Philip Pleasants), and Kapeltmeister Bonno (Louis Schaefer) provide nagging, piercing attitudes feeding Salieri’s paranoia and Mozart’s outrageous antics.

This production of Amadeus is a Kent Thompson masterpiece with all of the elements working in unison and harmony. Stylized as it may be, the scenes flow efficiently with graceful orchestration; detailed with precise choreography, all the while the entire cast provides a pinnacle of characterizations in depth.

A visual feast, words stand in for notes for this musical composition with the cryptic observation that “Mozart created legends out of the ordinary, Salieri created the ordinary out of legends,” Amadeus stabs the imagination to learn more about Mozart and Salieri, their music, fears and paranoia, their genius and their pettiness. The Declaration of Independence had already been written, the American Revolutionary War had been fought with Britain bowing to U.S. independence, the French Revolution was in full swing, and no one on American soil had heard of Mozart, much less Salieri. What a wealth of wisdom lies within our grasp.