I had very little recollection of the first time I saw this perhaps some 40 years ago apart from the gist of it being about Salieri and Mozart. As this viewing made clear, the emphasis was very much on Salieri. He is the Austrian court's director of music who has come from Italy and recognises early on that the young Mozart is far more gifted than he. Mozart recognises it also and is painted as behaving in an almost infantile asocial way - stuck at the stage of finding 'poo' a cause of great merriment. Salieri is presented as feeling the greatest quarrel with God, who has given such gifts to Mozart when Salieri felt it was he who should have been rewarded for his faith. He does what he can to thwart Mozart's career and ensure that he lives in poverty. This does not, of course, stop Mozart from his composition and these are tied to Salieri himself - e.g., the Requiem is suggested as referring to Mozart's own demise but also to Salieri's soul.
It is a thought-provoking play, conveying to me the message that setting out on a mission to destroy another in the end destroys the destroyer. We are left with Salieri regretting his acts and confessing to poisoning Mozart - the only act for which he will have any lasting notoriety.
This was a typically lavish National Theatre production and the acting was of a high standard. However, by the end I felt almost assaulted by Salieri's confessions and regrets and by the intensity with which these were conveyed by Lucian Msamati. It need pruning in my view. Too many words.
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