Scene One
WHISPERS: Salieri!
V1: The whole city is talking.
V2: You hear it all over.
V3: But why now?
V1: After so long?
V2: Thirty-two years!
WHISPERS: SALIERI!
V3: He shouts it out all day!
V1: He cries it out all night!
V2: Stays in his apartments, never goes out.
V3: Antonio Salieri
V1: The famous musician
V2: Who started the tale?
V3: The old man’s valet!
V1: The old man’s cook!
V2: What a scandal!
V3: (to valet) What does he say, your master?
V1: (to cook) What does he say, the First Kapellmeister?
V2: All day and all night.
V3: What sins does he shout?
V1: What horrors have you heard?
V2: Tell us at once! What does he cry?
SALIERI: MOZART!!!
V3: Mozart!
SALIERI: Perdonami, Mozart…Il tuo assassin ti chiede perdono!
V1: Pardon, Mozart!
V2: Pardon your assassin!
V1,2,3: God preserve us!
V1: There was talk once before
V2: When Mozart was dying
V3: He claimed he’d been poisoned!
V1: He accused Salieri!
V2: No one believed it.
V3: They knew what he died of.
V1: What if Mozart really was murdered?
V2: By our First Kapellmeister, Antonio Salieri!
V3: Why on earth would he do it?!
V1: Why confess now?
V2: After thirty two years!
WHISPERS: Salieri!
SALIERI: Mozart! Perdonami! Il tuo assasino ti chiede perdono!
V3: What do you think?
V1: What do you think?
V2: Did he do it after all?
WHISPERS: SALIERI!
Scene Two
SALIERI: (to audience) Vi saluto! Antonio Salieri. I can almost see you. Ghosts of the Future, be visible. I beg you. Come to this dusty old room—this November, eighteen hundred and twenty three. Be my confessors! Can you hear them? Vienna, City of Slander. Everyone tells tales here: even my servants. I keep only two now. One keeps me tidy, the other keeps me full. (to servants) Leave me! Tonight I do not go to bed at all! (to audience) This is the last hour of my life. My last audience. I can see you! Do not judge me too harshly. My parents were provincial subjects of the Austrian Empire. A merchant and his wife, forever preserved in mediocrity. I wanted fame in one special way. Music! A note of music is either right or wrong absolutely! Not even time can alter that: music is God’s art. My one desire was to join all the composers who had celebrated His glory through the long Italian past. I knelt before God and prayed with all my soul. “Signore, let me be a composer! Grant me sufficient fame to enjoy it. In return, I will honour You with music all the days of my life! Amen! I am Your servant for life! The very next day a family friend suddenly took me to Vienna and paid for me to study music! Shortly afterwards I met the Emperor, who favored me. My bargain had been accepted! The same year a young prodigy was touring Europe, aged ten years. Wolfgang Amaduen Mozart. And now, ladies and gentlemen! I present to you—for one performance only—my last composition, entitled The Death of Mozart; or, Did I Do It?...On this, the last night of my life!
Scene Three
SALIERI: Vienna 1781, the Enlightenment: that clear time before the guillotine fell in France and cut all of our lives in half. I am thirty-one, a prolific composer to the Habsburg Court. I own a respectable house and a respectable wife—Teresa. I also had a prize pupil, Katherina Cavalieri. She was later to become the best singer of her age, but at that time she was a student. I was very much in love with Katherina, or in lust, but because of my vow to God I never laid a finger upon the girl. My chief goal was the post of First Royal Kapellmeister, then held by Giuseppe Bonno, seventy years old, and apparently immortal.
V1: Sir!
V2: Sir!
V3: Sir!
SALIERI: I was the most successful young musician in the city of musicians, suddenly, without warning…
V1,2,3: Mozart has come!
SALIERI: These are my venticelli. My “Little Winds”. The secret of successful living in a large city is to always know what is being done behind your back.
V1: He’s left Salzburg
V2: Means to give concerts
V3: Asking for subscribers
SALIERI: I’d known him for years. Tales of his prowess were told all over Europe.
V1: They say he wrote his first symphony at five!
V2: I hear his first concerto at four!
V3: A full opera at fourteen!
SALIERI: How old is he now?
V1: twenty five
SALIERI: How long is he remaining?
V2: He’s here to stay.
Scene Four
STRACK: (to ROSENBERG) You are required to commission a comic opera in German from Herr Mozart.
SALIERI: Johann von Strack. Royal Chamberlain.
ROSENBERG: in German? Italian is the only possible language for opera.
SALIERI: Count Orsini-Rosenberg. Director of the Opera. Benevolent to all things Italian—especially me.
STRACK: The idea of a national opera is dear to His Majesty’s heart. He desires to hear pieces in German.
VAN SWIETEN: Why comic? It is not the function of music to be funny.
SALIERI: Baron von Swieten. Prefect of the Imperial Library. Ardent Freemason. Yet to find anything funny.
VAN SWITEN: I heard last week a remarkable serious opera from Mozart.
ROSENBERG: A young fellow trying to impress beyond his abilities. Too much spice. Too many notes.
STRACK: Kindly, convey the commission to him today.
ROSENBERG: We are going to have trouble with this young man. Child prodigy spells trouble. His father is Leopold Mozart, a bad-tempered musician who dragged the boy endlessly around Europe, making him play the keyboard blindfolded. All prodigies are hateful.
VAN SWIETEN: We meet tomorrow to devise pensions for old musicians. You’re a worthy man, Salieri. You should join our Brotherhood of Masons.
SALIERI: I would be honored, Baron!
VAN SWIETEN: We embrace men of talent of all conditions. I may invite young Mozart, dependent on the impression he makes.
SALIERI: Almost every man of influence in Vienna was a Mason. As for Mozart, I was alarmed by his coming. Not by the commission of a comic opera, even though I myself was then attempting one called The Stolen Bucket…No, what worried me were reports about the man himself. He was praised too much.
V3: Such gaiety of spirit!
V1: Such ease of manner!
V2: Such natural charm!
SALIERI: Really? Where does he live?
V3: Peter Platz.
V1: The landlady, Madame Weber, has a tribe of daughters.
V2: Mozart is after one of them.
V3: Constanze.
V1: Her mother’s pushing marriage!
V2: His father isn’t!
SALIERI: I want to meet him.
V3: He’ll be at the Baroness Waldstadten’s tomorrow night.
V1: His music is to be played.
SALIERI: So I went. That night changed my life.
Scene Five
SALIERI: I entered the library and sat down in a high-backed chair, unobservable to anyone who might come in.
CONSTANZE: Squeak! Squeak! Squeak!
MOZART: Miaow! Miaow! Miaow! I’m going to pounce-bounce, I’m going to scrunch-munch! I’m going to chew-poo my little mouse-wouse! I’m going to tear her to bits with my paws claws!
CONSTANZE: No!
MOZART: Paws claws, paws claws, paws claws! Oh!
SALIERI: Before I could rise, it had become difficult to do so.
MOZART: I’m going to bite you in half with my fangs-wangs! My little Stanzerl-wanzerl-banzerl! You’re trembling! I think youre frightened of puss wuss! I think you’re scared to death!
CONSTANZE: Shhh! Someone’ll hear you! Stop it, Wolfy! It’s really stupid!
MOZART: Hey hey what’s Trazom?
CONSTANZE: What?
MOZART: T-r-a-z-o-m. What’s that mean?
CONSTANZE: How should I know?
MOZART: It’s Mozart spelled backwards, dim-wit! If you ever married me, you’d be Constanze Trazom!
CONSTANZE: No, I wouldn’t!
MOZART: Yes, you would. Because I’d want everything backwards once I was married!
CONSTANZE: Your father’s never going to give his consent to us.
MOZART: Who cares?
CONSTANZE: You care very much. You wouldn’t do it without it.
MOZART: Wouldn’t i?
CONSTANZE: No you wouldn’t. You’re too scared of him. I know what he says about me. “If you marry that dreadful girl, you’ll end up lying on straw with beggars for children!”
MOZART: Marry me!
CONSTANZE: Don’t be silly!
MOZART: Marry me!
CONSTANZE: Are you serious?
MOZART: Yes! Answer me this minute yes or no!
MAJORDOMO: Her Ladyship is ready to commence.
MOZART: Ah…yes…good! Come, my dear. The music awaits!
CONSTANZE: Oh, by all means—Herr Trazom!
SALIERI: And then, the concert began. It started simply enough. It would have been comic except for the slowness, which gave it a sort of serenity. It had me trembling, my eyes clouded. I called up to God, “What’s this?”…Suddenly I was running into the cold night, gasping for life. (to God) What is this pain? What is the need in this sound? Can it be Yours?...(to audience) I was suddenly frightened. It seemed to me that I had heard the voice of God—and it was the voice of an obscene child!
Scene Six
SALIERI: I ran home and buried my fear in my work. More pupils. More committees to help musicians. More to God’s glory. At night I prayed for one thing, “Let your voice enter me! Let me be your conduit! Let me!” As for Mozart, I avoided meeting him.
V1: Six fortepiano sonatas composed in Munich!
V2: Two in Mannheim!
V3: A Parisian symphony!
SALIERI: They were all clever, yet they seemed to me completely empty!
V1: A Divertimento in D.
V2: A Cassazione in G.
V3: A Grand Litany in E flat.
SALIERI: Conventional. Boring. Nothing more. That Serenade was obviously an exception in his work: the sort of accident which might visit any composer on a lucky day! Had I been simply taken by surprise that the filthy creature could write music at all? Suddenly, I felt immensely cheered! I would seek him out and welcome him myself to Vienna!
Scene Seven
JOSEPH: Fetes and fireworks, gentlemen! Mozart is here!
ALL: Majesty!
SALIERI: Emperor Joseph the Second of Austria. Son of Maria Theresa. Brother of Marie Antoinette. Adorer of music. Majesty, I have written a little march in Mozart’s honor. May I play it as he comes in?
JOSEPH: Court Composer, what a delightful idea! Have you met him?
SALIERI: Not yet, Majesty.
JOSEPH: Strack, bring him at once! Mon Dieu, I wish we could have a competition! Mozart against some other virtuoso. Two keyboards in a contest. Wouldn’t that be fun?
VAN SWIETEN: Majesty, musicians are not horses to be run against each other.
JOSEPH: Ah. Well—there it is!
STRACK: Herr Mozart, Majesty.
JOSEPH: Ah! Splendid! Court Composer—charming.
MOZART: Majesty! Your Majesty’s humble slave! Let me kiss your royal hand a hundred thousand times!
JOSEPH: Si vous plait! A little less enthusias, I beg you. Come sir, you know everyone here surely?
MOZART: Yes, sire. Herr Director! Herr Prefect!
VAN SWIETEN: Delighted to see you again!
JOSEPH: But not, our esteemed Court Composer. No one who cares for art can afford not to know Herr Salieri. He wrote that exquisite little March of Welcome for you.
SALIERI: It was a trifle, Majesty.
JOSEPH: Nevertheless…
MOZART: I’m overwhelmed, Signore!
JOSEPH: Let it be my pleasure to introduce you! Court Composer Salieri—Herr Mozart of Salzburg. Mozart, have you received our commission for the opera?
MOZART: Indeed I have, Majesty! You will have the best, the most perfect entertainment ever offered a monarch. I’ve already found a libretto.
ROSENBERG: I didn’t hear of this!
MOZART: Forgive me, I entirely omitted to tell you.
ROSENBERG: Why?
MOZART: It didn’t seem important.
ROSENBERG: It is important to me, Herr Mozart.
MOZART: Yes, I see that.
ROSENBERG: Who is it by?
MOZART: Stephanie.
ROSENBERG: A most unpleasant man.
MOZART: But a brilliant writer. The story really is amusing, Majesty. The whole plot is set in a…
JOSEPH: Where? Where is it set?
MOZART: It’s—rather saucy, Majesty!
JOSEPH: Yes, yes! Where?
MOZART: It’s set in a…a pasha’s harem!
ROSENBERG: You imagine that is a suitable subject for performance at a national theater?
MOZART: Why not? It’s very funny, there’s nothing offensive in it! It’s full of proper German virtues.
JOSEPH: Name us a proper German virtue.
MOZART: Love, sire. I have yet to see that expressed in any opera.
SALIERI: I was under the impression one rarely saw anything else expressed in opera.
MOZART: I mean manly love, Signore. Not male sopranos screeching. Or stupid couples rolling their eyes. All that absurd Italian nonsense. I mean the real thing.
JOSEPH: Do you know the real thing yourself, Herr Mozart?
MOZART: I think I do, Majesty
JOSEPH: Bravo. When will it be done?
MOZART: The First Act is finished.
JOSEPH: It can’t be more than two weeks since you started!
MOZART: Composing is not hard when you have the right audience to please, Sire.
JOSEPH: Indeed. We are going to have fetes and fireworks! Au revoir, Monsieur Mozart. I’ll leave you gentlemen to get better acquainted!
VAN SWIETEN: Mozart, I shall see much more of you! Depend on it!
MOZART: Thank you!
SALIERI: I, too, wish you success with your opera.
MOZART: It’s going to be superb. I have found the most excellent singer for the leading part, Katherina Cavalieri! She’s German, but she thinks it will advance her career if she sports an Italian name.
SALIERI: It was my idea. She is my prize pupil, a very innocent child, only twenty.
MOZART: Yes.
SALIERI: I had kept my hands off Katherina, but I could not bear to think of anyone else’s upon her—least of all his!