Antonio Salieri

"My plan was so simple. It terrified me. First I must get the death mass and then, I must achieve his death. (Father Vogler: What?) His funeral! Imagine it, the cathedral, all Vienna sitting there, his coffin, Mozart's little coffin in the middle, and then, in that silence, music! A divine music bursts out over them all. A great mass of death! Requiem mass for Wolfgang Mozart, composed by his devoted friend, Antonio Salieri! Oh what sublimity, what depth, what passion in the music! Salieri has been touched by God at last. And God is forced to listen! Powerless, powerless to stop it! I, for once in the end, laughing at him!"

- Salieri on killing Mozart. Antonio Salieri is the main antagonist, as well as one of the main protagonists, of the 1979 play, Amadeus, and its 1984 film adaption. Based on the real-life famed musician of the same name, he is highly dramatized in both depictions of the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

He was portrayed by the late Paul Scolfield in the play, and F. Murray Abraham in the film.

Biography
Antonio Salieri had always wanted to be a music composer, a dream that his dad (who wanted him to go into commerce) always scoffed at. He even mocked Salieri when he told him of how he wanted to pursue music like Mozart. Salieri, who had a deep devotion to God, had prayed that God would give him the opportunity to compose music and use it to bring honor and glory to him. He then saw it as a miracle from God when his dad choked to death, because it meant he could follow his dream.

Years later, in 1791, Salieri is part of the cultural elite in Vienna and has been appointed court composer for Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II. He sees his respect from others, as well as the love people have for his music as a gift from God for his piety.

When Salieri hears of child prodigy Mozart coming to Vienna, he goes to a performance to meet him, thinking that his genius must be a gift from God. However, once he gets there and witnesses him fooling around with his girlfriend, Constanze Weber, he sees that he is a vulgar and very childish young man. Later, when Mozart meets the Emperor, Salieri presents Mozart with a "March of Welcome," which he had toiled to create. After hearing the march only once, Mozart plays it from memory, tactlessly critiques it, and effortlessly improvises a variation, transforming Salieri's "trifle" into what later would become the Non più andrai march from his opera The Marriage of Figaro.

Salieri's hatred for Mozart increases once the later has an affair with Katerina Cavalieri, whom he had a deep love for. He begins to think violently about Mozart and even prays to God that he will send Mozart away for both their sake. Constanze meets with him to discuss giving Mozart the royal position, and shows him one of his own works without Mozart knowing. Salieri is both impressed and angered by how "miraculous" it is, especially given it is not a copy. Wanting to come up with an excuse to not give him the royal position, Salieri blackmails Constanze into coming back the following night to have sex with him, and in exchange he would give the position to Mozart. He does this thinking she will not show up. That following night he prays to God that he will give him the touch of true music, in order to know that God still loves him, and he will in exchange give the position to Mozart. However Constanze does in fact show up and takes off her shirt, so he has one of his servants show her out, humiliating her. He then loses his faith entirely and burns his cross he kept on his wall-declaring that he will harm Mozart as far as he is able for revenge against both him and God.

Salieri begins his promise by lying to the emperor that Mozart had been molesting women during music lessons. Mozart is unaware that Salieri is telling these lies and they talk about who will be the future music teacher of the emperor's niece. Mozart asks Salieri to find some pupils for him, out of a need for money. He says that his concerts are always very successful, but nobody is willing to pay him for giving music lessons. He also asks Salieri for a loan of money. But Salieri hedges the request and just asks for some information about Mozart's newest project; but Mozart keeps his secret. Salieri recommends a man, whose daughter could take some music lessons. However Mozart is not pleased with the meeting.

Once Mozart takes his father and wife to a masquerade ball, Salieri (under the guise of simply one of the guesses via a mask) asks him to play something by him on the piano, to which Mozart responds by playing a parody of his work and making fun of it. Salieri sees this as God laughing through him.

After Mozart's father dies, Salieri begins planning to kill Mozart after he has taken credit for his work. He disguises himself as a stranger in a mask and costume similar to one he saw his father wear at the party, and asks Mozart to write a Requiem, giving him a down payment and the promise of an enormous sum upon completion. His plan is to use the Requiem during Mozart's funeral after he has killed him and pass it off as his own. Salieri also hires a woman to be his servant to spy on him for his work-and by doing so is able to expose an opera of Mozart's, The Marriage of Figaro, that he knows will be disapproved by the emperor.

Due to the stress put upon Mozart from both Salieri and his father's death, he begins drinking heavily and both his health and his relationship with Constanze is beginning to tarnish-to the point where she takes their son and leaves him to go to the spa. Mozart later passes out during a performance of The Magic Flute and Salieri brings him home. When the actors for Mozart's play show up at the door to check on him, Mozart thinks it's the man whom Salieri disguises himself as, and sends him down to talk to him. Salieri manages to brush the actors off, and takes Mozart's share of money they give him. Once they leave he tells Mozart the money was from the man and that he wants him to have the Requiem done by the next night. Salieri offers to write it down while Mozart describes it to him. They spend the whole night together working on it. When Constanze returns in the morning, she tells Salieri to leave. She locks the manuscript away and tells Salieri to leave. However he refuses to do so unless Mozart tells him to. She tries to get Mozart to tell him, only to discover he has died.

Thirty-two years later, Salieri grows tired of watching his music become less popular and Mozart's becomes more famous. He later blames himself for Mozart's death, begs him for forgiveness in prayer, and tries to kill himself by slitting his throat-only to be saved by his servants. He is taken to an asylum, where he confesses to a young priest and tells him of his life story. Afterwards, Salieri concludes that God killed Mozart rather than allow Salieri to share in even an ounce of his glory, and that he is consigned to be the "patron saint of mediocrity". Salieri absolves the priest of his own mediocrity and blesses his fellow patients as he is taken away in his wheelchair-remembering Mozart's infamous laugh.

In the play, Salieri narrates his life story directly to the audience, not a priest. He also poisoned Mozart with arsenic in the play-unlike in the film where he more indirectly killed him by pressuring him to finish the Requiem, which in turn affected his health. The play also ends with Salieri trying to kill himself with a razor in hopes of being remembered and confesses to having killed Mozart. However he survives and his confession is met with disbelief-leaving him to wallow once again in mediocrity.

Trivia

 * Both the play and film highly dramatize Salieri's character. While there was intensity between him and Mozart due to competition, they were overall on good terms and there is no evidence to suggest Salieri wanted to kill him. He even tutored Mozart's son, Franz, in music after his death. Salieri was also married with children.
 * Some other aspects of Salier's life that are omitted in the play and the film are that a few of his pupils were Beethoven, Schubert, and Liszt.
 * In real life, Count von Walsegg requested that Mozart write the Requiem.
 * Although it has been speculated that Salieri poisoned Mozart in real life by Russian author Alexander Pushkin in his 1830 verse drama Mozart i Salieri, no such evidence suggests this is true-in fact it has been widely hypothesized that Mozart actually died of rheumatic fever.
 * In reality, Salieri was committed to medical care due to dementia for the last year and a half of his life. He died in Vienna on 7 May 1825, aged 74.
 * F. Murray Abraham was critically praised for his performance and won an Oscar for Best Actor-beating Tom Hulce for his performance as Mozart in the same film.