{"id":2616538,"date":"2026-06-20T05:36:01","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T09:36:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/review-of-amadeus\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T05:40:03","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T09:40:03","slug":"review-of-amadeus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/review-of-amadeus\/","title":{"rendered":"Review of Amadeus"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">6<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Freview-of-amadeus%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2616538&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Playwright Peter Shaffer explored the enduring theme of the contrast between a disciplined, rule-bound individual and a passionate, wild counterpart, a motif present in many of his works like *Equus* and *Lettice and Lovage*. His 1981 Tony Award-winning play *Amadeus* exemplifies this, depicting the 18th-century rivalry between composer Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, focusing on themes of envy, divine justice, and the transcendence of artistic genius. A recent television adaptation on Starz, inspired by Shaffer\u2019s original, stars Paul Bettany as Salieri and Will Sharpe as Mozart, expanding on the story but criticized for poor casting and anachronistic dialog that detracts from its historical authenticity. Despite its flaws, the series retains strong performances and compelling themes, highlighted by Mozart&#8217;s music, which powerfully underscores the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/medieval-is-the-historical-christian-action-epic-you-didnt-know-you-needed\/\" title=\"\u2018Medieval\u2019 Is The Historical Christian Action Epic You Didn\u2019t Know You Needed\">timeless nature<\/a> of human ambition and envy. The critique emphasizes that Shaffer\u2019s insights into human nature remain relevant, even if the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/netflixs-story-of-moses-series-takes-creative-liberties-that-just-dont-work\/\" title=\"Netflix&#039;s &#039;Story Of Moses&#039; ... Struggles with Creative Liberties\">series struggles<\/a> with casting and modern language choices that undermine its period setting.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<article class=\"fn-body\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Playwright Peter Shaffer (1926-2016) chased the same idea for 30 years. A mild-mannered, rule-bound protagonist meets a counterpart who is wild at heart. Our hero is at first repelled but soon becomes fascinated, envious, even obsessed. Theatergoers who remember <em>Five Finger Exercise<\/em> (1958), <em>The Royal Hunt of the Sun<\/em> (1964), <em>Equus<\/em> (1973), and <em>Lettice and Lovage<\/em> (1987) will recognize the theme. Virtue may be its own reward, but passion is the only sure road to transcendence. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Amadeus<\/em>, winner of the 1981 Tony Award for Best Play, is perhaps Shaffer\u2019s clearest expression of this conceit. Set in 18th-century Vienna, the play concerns the relationship between staid court composer Antonio Salieri and brilliant vulgarian <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/magazine\/2093521\/amadeus-on-stage\/\">Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart<\/a>. Convinced that \u201cmusic is God\u2019s art,\u201d Salieri despairs to realize that his unworthy rival has been chosen as the Almighty\u2019s vessel. (\u201cLet your sound enter me! Let me be your voice!\u201d) Thus dejected, Salieri sets out to destroy his adversary, aware all the while that<a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/magazine\/2016560\/mozarts-gift\/\"> Mozart <\/a>has lived and worked in a higher register than Salieri will ever reach. <\/p>\n<section class=\"explore-more-section\" id=\"wex-recommended-widget\">\n<div class=\"magazine-container single\">\n<h1 class=\"magazine-title mt-2\">Recommended Stories<\/h1>\n<p>             <i class=\"fa-solid fa-play icon\"><\/i>         <\/div>\n<div class=\"explore-grid\">\n<div class=\"explore-card\">                         <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/entertainment\/4616676\/dc-host-muted-juneteenth-america-250\/?itm_source=parsely-api\">                             <\/p>\n<div class=\"explore-thumb-wrap\">                                                                                                                                  <\/div>\n<h3>Washington hosts relatively muted Juneteenth compared to America 250 events<\/h3>\n<p>                         <\/a>                     <\/div>\n<div class=\"explore-card\">                         <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/entertainment\/4613523\/joy-behar-admits-vance-isnt-bad-guy-after-appearance-the-view\/?itm_source=parsely-api\">                             <\/p>\n<div class=\"explore-thumb-wrap\">                                                                                                                                  <\/div>\n<h3>Joy Behar admits Vance isn\u2019t a \u2018bad guy\u2019 after appearance on The View<\/h3>\n<p>                         <\/a>                     <\/div>\n<div class=\"explore-card\">                         <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/entertainment\/4613142\/world-cup-tourists-fall-in-love-america\/?itm_source=parsely-api\">                             <\/p>\n<div class=\"explore-thumb-wrap\">                                                                                                                                  <\/div>\n<h3>How World Cup tourists have fallen in love with America, and America has fallen in love with the tourists<\/h3>\n<p>                         <\/a>                     <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The new five-part take on Shaffer\u2019s masterpiece, airing on Starz, preserves this tension. (The series premiered late last year on Sky Atlantic.) Played by a wan Paul Bettany, Salieri is a broken man, increasingly possessed by the notion that God has blessed the wrong servant. Mozart, lent reckless bravado by <em>The White Lotus<\/em>\u2019s Will Sharpe, is an infuriating genius, careless of his gift and far more concerned with his seduction of soprano Constanze Weber (Gabrielle Creevy). Viewers of this television adaptation will inevitably hearken back to <em>Amadeus<\/em>, the film, Milos Forman\u2019s <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/oscars\/\">Oscar-winning<\/a> 1984 version starring F. Murray Abraham as Salieri and Tom Hulce as Mozart. Let\u2019s clear things up right now: The movie is far better. Nevertheless, the series is not without its appeal. Given room to expand, Shaffer\u2019s source material proves more than able to support an expanded <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/tv\/\">TV<\/a> runtime. <\/p>\n<div class=\"wex-inarticle-ad wex-inarticle-ad-art-dsk-inart-1\">\n<div class=\"wex-ad-wrap\" style=\"min-height:5px;\"><span class=\"wex-ad-label\" style=\"display:none;\">Advertisement<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-3182201-15\" data-wex-ad=\"art-dsk-inart-1\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-paywall\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is aided by a pair of compelling supporting performances. As Mozart\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >illicit-lover-turned-wife<\/a>, Creevy captures well the equipoise required of a strong woman among self-worshiping men. Note the insouciance with which, in an early episode, she disarms an unwanted advance by revealing a pregnant belly. Even better is a scene-stealing Rory Kinnear as Emperor Joseph, an arts patron so world-weary he can barely remember which opera plots he\u2019s banned. Taken together, these characters make a clever joke of the Enlightenment: Suppress rape and despotism, and one is left with sexual harassment and ministerial feuds. Yet Creevy\u2019s work, at least, is not entirely comic. While Mozart is writing and conducting his world-bestriding <em>Marriage of Figaro<\/em>, Constanze is at home, abandoned, mourning in solitude the death of the pair\u2019s infant son. <\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\">Will Sharpe in Amadeus. (Adrienn Szabo\/Sky UK Ltd)<\/p>\n<p>&#8221; data-large-file=&#8221;https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2026\/06\/localimages\/LA.TV_.062426.jpg?w=696&#8243; height=&#8221;658&#8243; width=&#8221;1024&#8243; &#8220;https:><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Will Sharpe in \u2018Amadeus\u2019. (Adrienn Szabo\/Sky UK Ltd)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Shaffer\u2019s drama, in its original form, was not long enough to give full humanity to its eponymous enfant terrible. The show, by contrast, attempts the task but fails, largely on the basis of poor casting. Like Jesse Eisenberg or Adam Driver, Sharpe belongs to a class of actors so contemporary in manner that they ought not to play last week, never mind last millennium. Bro-ish, halting, and more than a little reminiscent of a young Keanu Reeves, the 39-year-old is about as believable in the Habsburg Empire as Twain\u2019s Connecticut Yankee was in King Arthur\u2019s court. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Weirdly, showrunner Joe Barton\u2019s scripts suffer from the same flaw. In place of Shaffer\u2019s period-appropriate stylizations (\u201cThe devil take the lot of them!\u201d), we get such au courant<em> <\/em>cliches as \u201cWell, anyway\u201d and \u201cYes, no,\u201d two discourse-marking tics that occur dozens of times in the show\u2019s five episodes. Why not go the whole distance and replace Mozart\u2019s letters with pings on Slack? The problem with these departures from verisimilitude is that authenticity is like Chesterton\u2019s fence: tear it down at your peril. Rather than sustaining the viewer\u2019s passage through his historical world, Barton deliberately challenges it. <\/p>\n<div class=\"wex-inarticle-ad wex-inarticle-ad-art-dsk-inart-2\">\n<div class=\"wex-ad-wrap\" style=\"min-height:5px;\"><span class=\"wex-ad-label\" style=\"display:none;\">Advertisement<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-3182201-16\" data-wex-ad=\"art-dsk-inart-2\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Given the universality of Shaffer\u2019s ideas, this is the very opposite of wisdom. To \u201cpresentize\u201d 18th-century Vienna in speech or style is to suggest that jealousy and obsession are merely contemporary concerns, an implication that bears less than a moment\u2019s scrutiny. Indeed, if Shaffer\u2019s oeuvre demonstrates anything, it\u2019s that mankind\u2019s fundamental sins are the same in Austria as in Incan Peru, among bourgeois Brits as among melancholic shrinks. One is reminded of the Roman playwright Terence: \u201cI am human, and nothing human is alien to me.\u201d This updated <em>Amadeus<\/em> series would have done well to keep the dictum in mind. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/premium\/4590223\/tv-critic-takes-measure-bluey\/\">A CRITIC TAKES THE MEASURE OF \u2018BLUEY\u2019 <\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yet the show is not, on the whole, badly done. Bettany, a welcome presence on my screens at least since 2003\u2019s <em>Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World<\/em>, holds his own in a role previously filled by Paul Scofield, Ian McKellen, and David Suchet (in addition to Abraham, in his Oscar-winning turn in the Forman film). And, though compromised by the show\u2019s 21st-century affectations, Shaffer\u2019s themes and characters have the strength to hold audiences\u2019 attention. In creating a man just skilled enough to recognize his own mediocrity, the playwright gives us a type who really is, as Salieri so dearly wishes to be, immortal. <\/p>\n<div class=\"wex-inarticle-ad wex-inarticle-ad-art-dsk-inart-3\">\n<div class=\"wex-ad-wrap\" style=\"min-height:5px;\"><span class=\"wex-ad-label\" style=\"display:none;\">Advertisement<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-3182201-17\" data-wex-ad=\"art-dsk-inart-3\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The crowning touch, of course, is Mozart\u2019s music, used frequently and well throughout the show. I defy anyone not to be moved as the second episode cuts between the composer\u2019s <em>Great Mass in C Minor<\/em> and Salieri\u2019s pained recognition of his rival\u2019s brilliance. Even on first hearing, our hero understands that Mozart\u2019s notes are eternal. Just for a moment, we wish, along with him, that we had written them. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Graham Hillard is the TV critic for the <\/em>Washington Examiner<em> magazine.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\n<div class=\"wex-inarticle-ad wex-inarticle-ad-art-dsk-inart-4\">\n<div class=\"wex-ad-wrap\" style=\"min-height:5px;\"><span class=\"wex-ad-label\" style=\"display:none;\">Advertisement<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-3182201-25\" data-wex-ad=\"art-dsk-inart-4\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Peter Shaffer explored the same theme for decades: a disciplined, conventional man encounters a wild spirit-initially repelled, then fascinated and obsessed. Fans of his works like *Five Finger Exercise*, *The Royal Hunt of the Sun*, *Equus*, and *Lettice and Lovage* will recognize this motif. Virtue may be its own reward, but passion alone leads to transcendence. Shaffer\u2019s 1981 Tony-winning play *Amadeus* vividly depicts this idea through the rivalry between composed Antonio Salieri and genius Mozart in 18th-century Vienna-Salieri envies Mozart\u2019s divine talent, believing he was chosen by God for greatness while feeling unworthy himself. A new Starz series adapts this story, with Paul Bettany as Salieri-a broken man consumed by envy-and Will Sharpe as Mozart-a reckless prodigy more interested in seduction than his art. While inspired by Milos Forman\u2019s acclaimed 1984 film, the series struggles with casting and modern dialogue that detract from historical authenticity but still captures Shaffer\u2019s core themes: human jealousy, obsession, and the eternal nature of artistic genius<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":956,"featured_media":2616539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/LA.TV_.062426.jpg?w=696","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[13102,81460,3863,70528,50916],"class_list":["post-2616538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-classical","tag-latinium","tag-music","tag-opera-2","tag-review-2"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/LA.TV_.062426.jpg?w=696","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2616538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/956"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2616538"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2616538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2616542,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2616538\/revisions\/2616542"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2616539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2616538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2616538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2616538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}