AMADEUS: A Musical Adventure

From left to right, Matt Daniels as Antonio Salieri, Zach Thomas Woods as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Rachael Zientek as Constanze Weber in Amadeus at Skylight Music Theatre. Photo credit: Mark Frohna.

A review of Amadeus

by Benjamin Earnest, age 13

The play Amadeus, later adapted into an award-winning film, tells of the rivalry between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri and their back-and-forth passive aggression. Both perspectives were equally interesting to observe as a viewer and as a musician myself. The very balanced use of music in this show was a unique factor that played into the fact that while it wasn’t a musical, it still had a place for the music. This play, performed at Skylight Music Theatre, really highlights the importance of different styles of character development, how the orchestra and crew can play as characters, and historical accuracy.

This play’s approach to giving the audience a view of how the characters grow throughout their lives was one thing that caught my attention as a fellow actor, because in the rehearsal process there is always at least one day in which you focus on a character’s intentions and actions. For example, we first see Mozart (Zach Thomas Woods) as a very open person to new people, but along the journey he begins to start tension between him and Salieri (Matt Daniels) in very public spaces like concerts and in front of Emperor Joseph II (Joe Picchetti). We also see Constanze Weber (Rachel Zientek) progress from being just a side lover of Mozart’s to realizing how different he can be and changing perspectives.

Although Amadeus isn’t a musical, its orchestra still plays a large part of the show. Skylight’s set (designed by Jonathan Berg-Einhorn) for Amadeus was built so that the pit is visible to the audience in costumes, but can still play the music (directed by Janna Vinson on piano). While either Salieri or Mozart pantomime playing the piano or just looking at the music, the pit behind them really brings the music to life. For example, at the final scene/moment of the first act, Salieri is rushing through Amadeus’ music and starting to confirm what the climax of the show was going to be, with the pit playing the music that he is looking at.

While many of us musicians know famous composers like Mozart or Beethoven, we don’t really remember the other “side characters” in our music history, like Antonio Salieri, which Amadeus highlights. For example, in Salieri’s first large monologue scene, he references how people in our modern time don’t know him because of Mozart’s reign over his era, which is uncovered in such a unique way by the Amadeus. With its historically accurate plotline, the play delivers what isn’t always in our best-known history textbooks.

Overall Skylight’s delivery of this play was wonderful and so well-directed by Karen Estrada. I would recommend it to musicians of ages 12+ or in general 15+ because of its more inappropriate scenes. See more shows like Amadeus at Skylight Music Theatre and their upcoming work like A ROCKIN Midsummer’s Night Dream!