I'd also take an adaptation of any of the weirder parts of Shaffer's many, many unpublished drafts now at the Wren Library.

Critical readings of primary and secondary sources are a big part of my music history/appreciation courses specifically because I want students to engage with how people have talked about music in different times and places. Generating a synthetic text for that kind of assignment misses the point.

Presumably they invented a singer for Nannerl's part of the competition because they didn't want to explain the existence of Caterina Cavalieri.

I will say that having what is presumably the joint premiere of Prima la musica e poi le parole and Der Schauspieldirektor also involve a literal duel is...something. Although that plot point is going to make a certain opera that one of Constanze's cousins is going to write very weird.

It seems to me like the new series has the potential to do that, being a work of historical fiction while commenting on the accumulated stories most of us know from other media. But then again, I do have something of a vested interest in the odd stories we can't stop telling about Salieri. 8/8

While looking at the productions, adaptations, and even parodies that came out after the film, I've noticed that Shaffer and others knew that audiences were coming to the story with some ideas about Salieri and Mozart. After seeing the film, they still wanted this fiction, but in different ways. 7/8

Also, much as I love the film, there are things that a series has the potential to expand upon or address differently. I'm very curious how it will depict the decades after Mozart's death and Constanze's role in the emergence of Mozart mythmaking (something shown only briefly in the play). 6/8

Several post-2016 productions go further in their uses of costuming, music, and technology to comment on the play's use of rumor and depictions of celebrity culture. I'd love to see that explored in the television medium! 5/8

One of Shaffer's last professional communications was approving the casting of Lucian Msamati as Salieri for the National Theatre revival. If you haven't seen this revival, check it out! The use of music is impressive--and not at all what Shaffer originally envisioned for the premiere run. 4/8

One thing that became apparent going through Shaffer's papers is that he never stopped rewriting Amadeus. And it wasn't just the script itself going through drafts. He reworked it for new theaters, radio adaptations, publications, translations, and seemingly just because he felt like it. 3/8

I get being tired of remakes! But you know who rewrote Amadeus constantly to suit new contexts, media formats, and actors? Sir Peter Levin Shaffer. In letters after receiving the Oscar, Shaffer admits to ambivalence about the film, mostly because it required him to actually finish something. 2/8

Definitely looking forward to this!

Do you know Frederick Reece at the University of Washington (as a former Wisconsinite, I just can't call it "UW")? I've seen him present some work on music and spiritualism, although I don't think he's included it in his publications on compositional forgery.

Weird mystery novels about music academia are a thing, but the depiction of research often focuses on the sorts of shocking biographical questions most of us don't actually do. My favorite fictional depiction of musicology--Donna Leon's The Jewels of Paradise--isn't a murder mystery.

Relatable (as someone who winds up quoting a fair amount of both 1990s queer theory and 1890s music criticism).

The thing that surprised me about them in Montréal was how much they seemed to be obviously catering to tourists and/or people who didn't know just how many places there are where you can go hear classical music for free or cheap.

Only in this version, Adams is very definitely not forgotten (as he fears in that line)! Who else is going to fight those snakes?

Reminds me of that bit from 1776: "Franklin smote the ground, and out sprang George Washington, fully grown and on his horse. Franklin then electrified him with his miraculous lightning rod, and the three of them—Franklin, Washington, and the horse—conducted the entire Revolution all by themselves."