The premiere you’ve been waiting for: “Amadeus” at the Vakhtangov Theater

The first premiere of the 102nd season took place at the Vakhtangov Theater on the Main Stage – the play “Amadeus” staged by Anatoly Shuliev. The title role – Mozart – is played by Viktor Dobronravov, the role of Salieri – Alexei Guskov.

A bitter confession of a talented person unfolds before the audience. The aged Antonio Salieri, once the most popular and sought-after composer in Vienna, is now forgotten by everyone. Summing up his life, he tries in vain to figure out why he wanted to, but never became an “instrument” in the hands of God, and why Mozart turned out to be that instrument.

Salieri’s memories flash like shots from an old film, to which he gives comments.

Here Salieri, with diligent studies and a truly puritanical renunciation of all earthly joys, attracts the attention of his contemporaries. Here he receives a high position as a court composer and even becomes a bandmaster of the imperial orchestra. Now his works are performed on the best stages of Europe. And Beethoven, Schubert and Liszt consider him their teacher.

But in this diligent climbing up, an unfortunate obstacle suddenly arises, his name is Mozart.

Mozart performed by Viktor Dobronravov is at first perceived by the audience as a complete misunderstanding. You can’t say otherwise: the artist makes his character a bright and at the same time completely unbearable person. Figlyar, almost Figaro, he is articulated, breathes music and is driven by it (a feature is clearly manifested in the plasticity of Viktor Fedorovich). Mozart “picks up his inspiration literally from the floor, not afraid to let life through him“. Before us is a person far from ideal from a social point of view: a merry fellow with stupid antics, a player, a walker, a drunkard, an uncouth provincial with a complete lack of tact. How famously, for example, he walks along Salieri’s march, written in honor of Mozart’s arrival! In three minutes, creating his brilliant work on the basis of someone else’s march, he adapts it to his own future opera Le nozze di Figaro!

Alexey Guskov makes his Salieri powerful, intriguing, solid. The artist reigns on the stage, filling the space with himself. His Salieri is not at all an envious person, pouring poison into a glass of an opponent, as we used to consider him. This is a personality, a high-flying bird. Salieri is talented and hardworking, disciplined and self-possessed. He devoted himself entirely to music. In this total immersion in music, as well as in its subsequent cunning, something demonic comes through.

From Salieri’s confession, we learn how, as a youth, he tried to conclude an agreement with God (almost a biblical story that relates the viewer to the story of Moses, who made a “covenant” with the Almighty). The only difference is that in the biblical story, the Most High himself chooses Moses, and the chosen one humbly follows God’s will. Here, on the contrary, the initiator of the contract is a person.

From this seemingly small detail, everything else grows.

Salieri, who dreams of becoming an “instrument” of God, in fact, dreams not at all about following the Higher Will, but about his own glory. The exorbitant pride of a person who has not received the desired pedestal pushes the hero to an open rebellion against Heaven. In fact, Aleksey Guskov’s Salieri is not arguing with Mozart. He argues with God himself. The phrases “You know you made a mistake and you don’t know how to fix it, but I do!” and “I will destroy this creature!” (that is, Mozart), turned to the Almighty, demonstrate the whole abyss of the fall of a proud soul. Salieri, blinded, dares to take the place of the Creator, arrogating to himself the right to control destinies (well, why not Dennitsa, who was eventually thrown from heaven to earth?).

God chooses Mozart as an “instrument”, not Salieri.

Gradually, we understand that behind the facade of Mozart’s buffoon is a man of crystal clear soul, in whose music there is not a single note of falseness. In conversations about music, Mozart becomes extremely serious. Just like Salieri, he constantly conducts his own dialogue with God, which the viewer will learn about more than once. This dialogue is filled with repentance, a sense of one’s own human imperfection and, most importantly, a readiness to accept the will of the Almighty regarding oneself, whatever it may be.

This is the striking difference between Mozart and Salieri.

The performance of the Vakhtangov Theater was released on the first week of Lent, I think, not by chance. The fabric of Anatoly Shulyev’s production contains deep philosophical thoughts and implicit references to many biblical parables. In a sense, “Amadeus” is a paraphrase of the story of Cain and Abel, where Cain kills his brother, because his sacrifice is not accepted by God, and Abel’s sacrifice is pleasing to God. There is also a roll call here with the story of the fall of Adam and Eve, who wished to stand on one foot with the Almighty, to be equal in rights with him. There is a reference to the parable of the hired workers who grumbled that those who worked for only an hour would receive from the Master the same pay as those who worked in the sweat of their brow from early morning.

“The Spirit breathes where it wants to, and you hear its voice, but you don’t know where it comes from and where it goes: this is the case with everyone born of the Spirit.” Salieri is especially keenly aware of this when he sees Mozart’s drafts, in which there is not a single blot. Mozart simply writes down the music that sounds inside him. This becomes the last straw forcing Salieri to take the path of rebellion. He derails his life: the composer is no longer busy with music, he is busy with the systematic destruction of a competitor, being in fact the only person who realizes the genius of his “colleague”.

Mozart dies in poverty, buried in a common lime pit, and Salieri contributes a lot to this in the performance. It can be said that Salieri defeats Mozart within the framework of his time, but he is powerless in the face of eternity.

Director Anatoly Shuliev emphasizes this idea in the finale, elevating Mozart to a high pedestal, at the base of which the dying Salieri rushes about, trying to somehow touch this glory, this eternity.

The Vakhtangov spectator reflects together with the creators of the play on the fact that the path of a genius is not strewn with roses at all. As the heroine of one famous series said: “Donya, don’t look into other people’s windows, maybe your life will seem like paradise to them.” Genius in life is like an eyesore. Like any anomaly, it is often incomprehensible to contemporaries. And the defensive reaction of contemporaries to everything incomprehensible is to destroy, if only in order to take a “time out” for understanding. After all, there will always be time to pay tribute posthumously by placing the phrase in the encyclopedia: “The composer’s work was truly appreciated only after his death.”

The production of “Amadeus” by Anatoly Shuliev is permeated with the music of Mozart. It seems that this enchanting music sounds from everywhere, filling the space of the stage and the hall, enveloping, posing an edge as old as the world question: are genius and villainy compatible. The Vakhtangov artists Ekaterina Kramzina, Polina Rafeeva, Fyodor Vorontsov, Oleg Makarov, Evgeny Kosyrev, Alexander Ryshchenkov, Valery Ushakov, Karolina Koitsan, Eyyub Faradzhev, Semyon Arzumanov, Mamuka Patarava and Grigory Zdorov help us find the answer to it.

Bravo, Vakhtangovites!

Elena Bulova.

Photo by Yana Ovchinnikova, courtesy of the theater

Video by Elena Bulova