Amadeus

The play makes it clear in no uncertain terms that Mozart was a musical genius. But Shaffer’s formulation of Mozart is, in part, destroyed by his own sense of pride and entitlement. Not only does Mozart repeatedly taut his own brilliance, but he expects his brilliance to protect him from the consequences of his behavior when he flouts the very structured rules of polite society at court. He sleeps with the women he teaches, which contributes to the fact that he has almost no music students, despite his well-known talent and skill. Mozart drinks too much at parties and very loudly insults the country, the emperor who patronizes him, and the members of the emperor’s cabinet who have helped his career. When Mozart has fallen out of favor and fashion, he turns to members of the freemasons for financial support. But when commissioned to write an opera, Mozart insults them by stages their secret rituals despite Salieri’s (albeit non-insistent) advice that this might get him in trouble. And in the end, Mozart’s pride leads to poverty and kills him.

Salieri also destroys his own life through pride and envy. Before he meets Mozart, he is secure in his own self-importance, both in the esteem of society and in the eyes of religion and his God. Envy of Mozart leads him into a destructive, mad descent. Salieri, along with Orsini-Rosenberg, Von Strack, and Van Swieten, decide to ruin Mozart’s career, not because they believe that his music is trite or unskilled, but because Mozart does not take care to preserve their pride. Salieri acts affronted by Mozart’s talent and the young composer’s refusal to kowtow to those with more social standing, so he resorts to increasingly aggressive deception and conspiracy to take the man down. In the end, pride and envy destroy both a talented composer and a good teacher.