Amadeus

Plot

In the winter of 1823, aged composer Antonio Salieri is committed to a psychiatric hospital after attempting suicide, during which his servants overhear him confess to murdering Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. A young priest, Father Vogler, approaches Salieri and tells him to confess his sins and find God's peace. Salieri plays two of his own melodies for Vogler, who is unfamiliar with them, and then one of Mozart's, which the priest recognizes at once. Salieri begins his confession by saying that he idolized Mozart from childhood. Salieri recounts that he prayed to God that if He allowed Salieri to become a famous composer, he would—in return—promise his faithfulness, chastity and diligence. Soon after, his father, who had not been supportive of his musical desires, chokes on his food and dies and Salieri takes as a sign that God has accepted his vow. By 1774, Salieri had become court composer to Emperor Joseph II in Vienna.

Seven years later, at a reception in honor of Mozart's patron, the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, Salieri anxiously awaits meeting his idol. Guessing his identity, he is shocked to discover that the transcendentally talented Mozart is obscene, silly, and immature. Salieri, a devout Catholic, cannot fathom why God would endow such a great gift onto Mozart instead of him and concludes that God is using Mozart's talent to make Salieri a mediocrity. Salieri renounces God and vows to take revenge on Him by destroying Mozart.

Meanwhile, Mozart's alcoholism ruins his health, marriage, finances, and reputation at court, even as he continues to produce brilliant work. Salieri hires a young girl to work as Mozart's maid and thereby discovers that Mozart is working on an opera based on the play The Marriage of Figaro, which the Emperor has forbidden, owing to its subversive theme. When Mozart is summoned to court to explain, he manages to convince the Emperor to allow his opera to premiere, despite Salieri's attempts at sabotage. When Mozart is informed that his father has died, he writes Don Giovanni in his grief.

Salieri recognizes the dead commander in the opera as symbolic of Mozart's father and concocts a scheme: he leads Mozart to believe that his father has risen to commission a Requiem. He then plans to kill Mozart once the piece is finished and premiere it at Mozart's funeral, claiming the work as his own, forcing God to listen as Salieri is acclaimed. Meanwhile, Mozart's friend Emanuel Schikaneder invites him to write an opera for his theatre. Mozart obliges, despite his wife Constanze's insistence that he finish the Requiem, as the opera is a riskier venture. After arguing with Mozart, Constanze leaves with their young son, Karl.

The opera in question, The Magic Flute, is a great success, but the overworked Mozart collapses during one performance. Salieri takes him home and persuades him to continue writing the Requiem, offering to take the bedridden Mozart's dictation; the two lay down the opening of the Confutatis together. The next morning, Mozart thanks Salieri for his friendship and Salieri admits that Mozart is the greatest composer he knows. Constanze returns and, appalled at Mozart working with Salieri, demands that Salieri leave immediately. She finds that Mozart has died in the night; he is unceremoniously buried in a mass grave.

Back in 1823, Vogler is too shaken to absolve Salieri; Salieri then surmises that God preferred to destroy His beloved Mozart rather than allow Salieri to share in the smallest part of his glory. He calls himself the "patron saint" of mediocrities; he promises, with bitter irony, to speak for Vogler and the other mediocrities of the world before God. As Salieri is wheeled down a hallway, absolving the hospital's other patients of their inadequacies, Mozart's laughter rings in the air.


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