He actually ushered in the Romantic era, but we don’t think of him in that way we think of Beethoven as the first Romantic, but he was Mozart’s student. Mozart himself stood at a time of transition in the arts, when people’s thinking began to change about art, life and what has value. I think our world today reflects some of that transition and transformation, so I don’t think it’s an accident that this play keeps coming back. The late 18th century was a huge period of political transition and transformation: the American Revolution had just happened, the Austrian Empire was starting to collapse and other revolutions-including the French Revolution-were sweeping Europe. One of the themes in Amadeus is transition. We asked Nicholson to talk more about Amadeus.
Since its 1979 London debut (with a first SCR production in 1983), Amadeus has drawn in audiences through Shaffer’s simple, yet powerful storytelling. He will direct Shaffer’s play, which concludes South Coast Repertory’s 2015-16 season (May 5-June 6, 2016).
“And I also think passion, lust and lust for power resonate with audiences!” he adds, laughing. Trying to convince him that he is doing well, Mozart takes him to a costume party where the composer for the first time sees the death mask and has a vision of his own demise.Kent Nicholson takes a moment to think about the nearly four-decade popularity of Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus: “While the play is epic in scope, it’s also a very personal story,” he says. In the scene Forman describes, Mozart, who is beginning to deteriorate, is visited by his stern father. I am pretty ignorant about these things.” “Listen, I don’t know very much about the lighting process. Although it is a masterful performance, Forman modestly demurs at the start of our conversation. More than any picture he’d done before, Amadeus revealed Forman’s ability to marshal both Hollywood-style resources and an Old World sensibility (no doubt aided by longtime collaborators cinematographer Miroslav Ondrícek and costume designer Theodor Pistek). The European-bred filmmaker also solidified his reputation as a director who could re-create a period on screen, whether it be 200 or 20 years ago.Īmadeus went on to be a hit critically and commercially and won the DGA’s Directorial Achievement Award and eight Oscars. Murray Abraham - in the drama of a flailing Mozart in 18th-century Vienna. Known for his quirks of casting, Forman went for virtual unknowns - Tom Hulce and F. It was in 1984, having established nonpareil credentials as an adapter of works from other media with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Hair that Forman transferred Amadeus from stage to screen. He was in Paris when Russian tanks crushed the Prague Spring and so he made his way - partly by choice, partly by circumstance - to the U.S. For starters, there’s his crucial role in the rise of the Czech New Wave during the mid-’60s. In a scene from a costume ball, he discusses the method behind Mozart's madness.Īt age 76, Milos Forman has had more than enough accomplishments to feather a retirement. Milos Forman's sumptuous staging of Amadeus combined Hollywood spectacle and European mastery.