From the beginning, writer Peter Shaffer and director Miloš Forman both were open about their desire to create entertaining drama only loosely based on reality, calling the work a "fantasia on the theme of Mozart and Salieri".[42]
The idea of animosity between Mozart and Salieri was popularized by Alexander Pushkin in 1830 in his play Mozart and Salieri. In it, Salieri murders Mozart on stage. The play was made into the opera Mozart and Salieri by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov 67 years later,[42] which in turn had its first screen adaptation by silent-film director Victor Tourjansky in 1914.[43]
Another significant departure in the film is the portrayal of Salieri as a pious loner trapped in a vow of chastity when in reality he was a married family man with eight children and at least one mistress.[22]
Mozart was indeed commissioned to compose a Requiem Mass by an anonymous benefactor. In reality, the patron turned out to be Count Franz von Walsegg, who was grieving after the death of his wife.[44]
