Amadeus is a play by Peter Shaffer, which gives a highly fictionalized account of the lives of the composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri. First performed in 1979, Amadeus was inspired by a short 1830 play by Alexander Pushkin called Mozart and Salieri (which was also used as the libretto for an opera of the same name by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1897).
In the play, significant use is made of the music of Mozart, Salieri and other composers of the period. The premieres of Mozart's operas The Abduction from the Seraglio, The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and The Magic Flute are each the setting for key scenes of the play.
The play was adapted by Shaffer for the 1984 film of the same name.
Read more about Amadeus: Plot, Awards and Nominations
Famous quotes containing the word Amadeus:
“My great-grandfather used to say to his wife, my great- grandmother, who in turn told her daughter, my grandmother, who repeated it to her daughter, my mother, who used to remind her daughter, my own sister, that to talk well and eloquently was a very great art, but that an equally great one was to know the right moment to stop.”
—Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)