Amadeus (play)

Amadeus
Playbill, 1981 (Broadhurst Theatre)
Written byPeter Shaffer
Characters
Date premiered2 November 1979
Place premieredRoyal National Theatre
London, England
Original languageEnglish
SubjectBiography of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
GenreDrama, tragedy
Setting1783–1825; Vienna, Austria; the Court of Joseph II
Jane Seymour (Constanze Mozart) alongside Ian McKellen (Antonio Salieri) in Amadeus, c. 1981.

Amadeus is a play by Peter Shaffer which gives a fictional account of the lives of composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, imagining a rivalry between the two at the court of Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor. First performed in 1979, it was inspired by Alexander Pushkin's short 1830 play Mozart and Salieri, which Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov used in 1897 as the libretto for an opera of the same name.

The play makes significant use 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 the settings for key scenes. It was presented at the Royal National Theatre, London in 1979, then moved to Her Majesty's Theatre in the West End followed by a Broadway production. It won the 1981 Tony Award for Best Play and Shaffer adapted it for the much acclaimed 1984 film of the same name.