Amadeus at Madison Lyric Stage

Madison Lyric Stage, a professional theater company on the Connecticut shoreline, presents Peter Shaffer’s suspenseful, music-filled drama Amadeus July 18 – August 3. The history, legacy and rivalry of classical music giants, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, explode in a story filled with jealousy, revenge, malice and scandal.

Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus is a reimagining of the lives of 18th century musical rivals Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The play, brought to life with the music of Mozart, is a tale of jealousy and betrayal…and perhaps even murder. The story opens in 1825 on the eve of the elderly Salieri’s death. A rumor has begun to circulate in Vienna that 34 years earlier Salieri had poisoned his rival Mozart. No one knows whether to believe it, or why Salieri might have wanted to murder Mozart.

Full of pomp and pageantry, Amadeus is a brilliantly funny and sometimes tragic examination of a man at war with his God. Salieri, in the long shadow of Mozart’s undeniable genius, cannot forgive his Creator for endowing him with comparative mediocrity. Winner of five Tony Awards, including Best Play, Amadeus ran for more than 1,000 performances on Broadway, and was made into a major motion picture, winning eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

“This play wrestles with huge ideas, huge emotions, and is set to the astonishing music of Mozart,” says Marc Deaton, artistic director of Madison Lyric Stage. “Salieri does everything right to earn the love of his God, but God bestows the far greater musical gifts on Mozart, who is infantile, profane and indifferent to God’s very existence. In fact, Amadeus, Mozart’s middle name, in Latin literally means “loved by God.”

The production is directed by Marc Deaton, and features John Johmann as Salieri, Nathaniel Baker as Mozart, Allison Waggener as Constanze, and Daniel Dykes as Joseph II.

Tickets are $55 and are available at madisonlyricstage.org. Performance times are Fridays and Saturdays at 7:00 pm, and Sundays at 4:00 pm at the historic Deacon John Grave House, located at 581 Boston Post Road in Madison.