The Magic Flute Study Guide - Manitoba Opera

W.A. Mozart: The Myths
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is legendary. That is,
while he was a real person, well documented in
many sources, we can also find stories about him
that are somewhat removed from fact.
The play and movie Amadeus started a fresh wave
of Mozart mania—and popularized the following
myths about Mozart’s life:
Wolfgang Mozart Antonio Salieri
• Did Salieri kill Mozart? In real life, Antonio Salieri was not the jealous rival of Mozart and did
not plot out his demise. Salieri was a pivotal figure in the development of late 18th century opera
and an esteemed musical colleague of Mozart’s who later taught music to Mozart’s son.
Toward the end of his life Salieri confessed to murdering Mozart - which might have been
believable had Salieri not been confined to an insane asylum at the time of his confession.
• Did Salieri scare Mozart into writing his own Requiem? The origin of Requiem does
have an interesting story, but it does not involve a feverish obsession by Mozart with the
ghost of his father. Mozart was commissioned anonymously to compose Requiem by
intermediaries acting for Franz Count of Walsegg, who hoped to pass it off as Walsegg’s own
work.
• Was Mozart a silly, vulgar idiot with an annoying laugh? Mozart had to retain a degree
of dignity when working at court and therefore could not have acted as he did in Amadeus. His
entertaining letters, however, do reveal that he was playful and wonderfully quick-witted. He
could sometimes have a vulgar sense of humour, but only showed that to his family and close
friends and, accidentally, to us when we read his letters. The laugh in Amadeus might be based
on his sister’s comment, in a letter, that Wolfgang’s laugh sounded like metal scraping glass.
• Did Mozart write “too many notes”? Emperor Joseph II’s reaction to Mozart’s The
Abduction from the Seraglio in 1782 is…true! Or at least is widely believed to be so. The
complete quote was, “Too many notes, my dear Mozart, and too beautiful for our ears.” The
Emperor may have been echoing a sentiment felt by many regarding Mozart’s music: that it
was so complex and sublime that it sometimes overwhelmed the senses of his 18th century
audience. Or he may have said, “An extraordinary number of notes,” and been
mistranslated from German.
How did Mozart die?
Nobody knows for certain how Mozart died. Theories
include:
• A sudden attack of rheumatic fever, from which he
had often suffered as a child
• Kidney failure
• Trichinosis—a parasitic disease caused by
undercooked pork
• Fever and stroke caused by too much bloodletting
• Mercury poisoning
What most people do agree on is that Mozart’s final
illness came upon him suddenly and included
Illustration of Mozart's deathbed
fever and rashes.
“In Mozart and Salieri we see the contrast between the
genius which does what it must and the talent which does what it can.”
- Maurice Baring, dramatist, poet, and novelist
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