50 Fun Facts About Amadeus

Which singer topped the US chart in 1986 with a German-language hit partly inspired by Amadeus?

Falco took Rock Me Amadeus to number one in Britain as well, the first Austrian act to top the chart there. He grew up in Vienna, the city where Mozart made his name.

Which Star Wars lead, who had played Mozart on Broadway, was turned down for the film Amadeus?

Mark Hamill auditioned for hours, only for the director to decide that nobody would accept Luke Skywalker as the composer. He had played the part on stage in 1983.

Which tennis star's mood swings reportedly shaped the lead actor's portrayal of Mozart in Amadeus?

John McEnroe and his outbursts on court gave the actor a model for a genius with no self-control. The actor claimed he only found the famous giggle after downing a bottle of whiskey.

Amadeus is the Latin form of Mozart's baptismal name Theophilus, which is usually said to mean what?

Loved by God is just how the envious Salieri sees his rival in the film. The name also exists as Gottlieb in German, the form used in the letter that announced his birth.

Which capital city behind the Iron Curtain doubled for 18th-century Vienna in the film Amadeus?

Prague was a homecoming for the director, who had left Czechoslovakia in the late 1960s. The crew filmed in six real palaces, furnished with antiques lent by the Czech government.

Which acting legend announced Amadeus as Best Picture without first reading out the other nominees?

Laurence Olivier, frail and in his late seventies, opened the envelope while still saying his thanks. The winning producer named the four losing films himself in his speech.

Which colour is the wig worn by Mozart in Amadeus that is now displayed in a Canadian museum?

Pink is the shade of the wig created by Paul LeBlanc, who shared the film's Oscar for makeup. It is kept at the Acadian Museum at the University of Moncton.

Which actress lost the role of Mozart's wife in Amadeus after injuring her leg playing soccer?

Meg Tilly was hurt just before her scenes were due to start, so a replacement was cast at the last minute. Both the director and her co-star had praised her rehearsals.

Which rock frontman was reported in 1982 to have auditioned for a leading role in the film Amadeus?

Mick Jagger was said by the Hollywood trade press to have read for a part. David Bowie and the ballet star Mikhail Baryshnikov were also passed over when the film was cast.

The actor who played Mozart in Amadeus later spoke and sang which Disney animated hero?

Quasimodo, the hero of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, needed a singer as well as an actor. By then the star had largely given up screen roles to produce stage shows.

Which opera, based on a banned French play, does Mozart talk the Emperor into allowing in Amadeus?

The Marriage of Figaro gets its royal blessing in the film, but the Emperor is bored at the premiere and the run is soon cancelled. The real play was censored for its frank view of class conflict.

Which opera, featuring a murdered commander's statue, does Salieri watch five times in Amadeus?

Don Giovanni entrances Salieri in the film, yet he still uses his influence to have it taken off. The real opera had its first night in the theatre where these scenes were shot.

Which opera does Mozart write for a commoners' theatre, against his wife's wishes, in Amadeus?

The Magic Flute delights the paying crowd, but Mozart collapses before he can finish conducting it. The real opera opened just two months before his death.

In Amadeus, whose masquerade costume does Salieri copy when he poses as a mysterious masked patron?

Mozart's father had worn the outfit to a masquerade ball, and Salieri counts on it to terrify a son still haunted by the dead man's disapproval.

Which Mozart tune does Salieri's visitor know at once in Amadeus, after two by Salieri draw a blank?

Eine kleine Nachtmusik has the visitor beaming with relief, to the disgust of a host nobody remembers. Its German name simply means a little night music.

At the end of Amadeus, the aged Salieri declares himself the patron saint of which group of people?

Mediocrities everywhere receive his blessing as he is wheeled through the asylum, absolving his fellow patients while Mozart's laughter rings out.

In the closing scenes of Amadeus, where is Mozart's body finally laid to rest?

A pauper's grave is the film's bleak last image of him. The real Mozart was buried in a common grave, which was normal in Vienna at the time for someone of his standing.

To whom does the aged Salieri tell the whole story of Amadeus, speaking from a psychiatric hospital?

A young priest named Vogler arrives to hear a confession and leaves too shaken to grant absolution. At first he does not even recognise the old composer.

In Amadeus, what stuns Salieri about the handwritten scores that Mozart's wife secretly brings him?

They have no corrections because, Salieri realises, Mozart is simply copying out music already finished in his head. He takes it as proof of a gift straight from heaven.

Which character returns at dawn in Amadeus and locks the unfinished Requiem away from Salieri?

Constanze, Mozart's wife, comes home after leaving him, orders Salieri out and shuts the score away. Moments later the two of them find that her husband has died.

Which actor, seen earlier as Pinto in Animal House, played Mozart in the film Amadeus?

Tom Hulce practised the piano for four hours a day in the month before filming so that his hands would match the music. He earned a Best Actor nomination for the part.

Which actor won the Best Actor Oscar for playing Salieri in Amadeus, beating his own co-star?

F. Murray Abraham had played a drug dealer in Scarface only a year earlier. In his speech he said the one thing missing was his beaten co-star standing beside him.

Which actress was called to audition for Mozart's wife after filming on Amadeus had already begun?

Elizabeth Berridge won the part only once the cameras were rolling, after the first choice was injured. She later starred in the Norman Lear sitcom The Powers That Be.

Which director of Hair and The People vs. Larry Flynt won his second Oscar for Amadeus?

Miloš Forman approached the playwright about a film after the very first London preview in 1979. His earlier directing Oscar was for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Which playwright of Equus turned his own stage hit into the Oscar-winning screenplay of Amadeus?

Peter Shaffer shut himself away for four months at the director's Connecticut farmhouse to rewrite the play. He and his identical twin, Anthony, also wrote detective novels together.

Which producer of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and The English Patient also made Amadeus?

Saul Zaentz financed the film through his own company. His money came from Fantasy Records, home of Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Which actor, later the dean of students in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, played the Emperor in Amadeus?

Jeffrey Jones earned a Golden Globe nomination as the amiable monarch with no ear for music. He went on to play Charles Deetz in Beetlejuice.

Which future Sex and the City star played Lorl, the maid planted in Mozart's home, in Amadeus?

Cynthia Nixon, still a teenager, plays the servant Salieri secretly pays to report on what Mozart is writing. She became famous as the lawyer Miranda Hobbes.

Which actor, the first Mozart in the London stage production, plays Schikaneder in the film Amadeus?

Simon Callow created the part on stage in 1979, and the screen version became his first film. He plays the showman who tempts Mozart into writing for ordinary theatregoers.

Which Star Wars actor has a cameo as a parody Commendatore in a comic opera scene in Amadeus?

Kenny Baker, the man who worked R2-D2 from the inside, turns up in the rowdy send-up of Mozart's operas staged at the people's theatre.

Which British actor, the best stage newcomer of 1982, wrote that he nearly played Mozart in Amadeus?

Kenneth Branagh, later the director and star of Henry V, was an early finalist but lost out when the leading roles went to Americans.

Which Rocky Horror star, Broadway's first Mozart, screen-tested for Salieri in the film Amadeus?

Tim Curry earned a Tony nomination as Mozart on stage, yet the director would not let him repeat the part on film. The test for the older composer was the writer's idea.

Which British actor won a Tony Award as Salieri when Amadeus opened on Broadway in 1980?

Ian McKellen beat his own stage partner to the prize, just as the film's Salieri would at the Oscars. He found a far bigger audience two decades later as Gandalf.

Which former Bond girl played Mozart's wife in the original Broadway production of Amadeus?

Jane Seymour, the psychic Solitaire in Live and Let Die, opened in the play in 1980. Her greatest fame came later as television's Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.

Which Russian writer's short play about a poisoning inspired the stage drama behind Amadeus?

Pushkin wrote Mozart and Salieri only five years after the real Salieri died, while the murder rumour was still fresh. In his version the poisoning is shown on stage.

Which American choreographer, who also worked on Hair and Ragtime, staged the operas in Amadeus?

Twyla Tharp recreated 18th-century productions of works by both rival composers. The film was her third with the same director.

Which conductor recorded the Amadeus soundtrack on condition that Mozart's music stayed unchanged?

Neville Marriner recorded the music before shooting began, so that it could be played through loudspeakers on set. The album went on to sell more than 6.5 million copies.

What lit the opera-house scenes in Amadeus, which were shot inside a real 18th-century theatre?

Candle-lit chandeliers weighing up to 800 pounds each hung over the cast, from a steel and aluminium grid built for the shoot. The theatre itself opened in 1783, in the composer's own day.

Which historic opera house, the site of a 1787 Mozart premiere, hosted scenes for Amadeus?

The Estates Theatre was known as the Tyl Theatre when the crew arrived. Mozart himself had conducted there on the opening night two centuries earlier.

Which makeup artist behind The Exorcist won an Oscar for turning Salieri into an old man in Amadeus?

Dick Smith, nicknamed the Godfather of Make-Up, built an old-age face that its wearer found completely convincing when he looked in the mirror.

In Amadeus, Mozart comes to Vienna in the service of the prince-archbishop of which Austrian city?

Salzburg was Mozart's birthplace, and he could not wait to leave it. The real composer was dismissed in 1781 with a kick in the backside from the archbishop's steward.

Which French queen was the real-life sister of Joseph II, the music-loving Emperor in Amadeus?

Marie Antoinette was a younger sister of the Emperor, who tried to help her family once the French Revolution broke out. He died in 1790, three years before she went to the guillotine.

Which of these great composers really took lessons from Salieri, the villain of the film Amadeus?

Beethoven was one of many famous pupils, along with Schubert and Liszt. The real Salieri taught all but his wealthiest students free of charge.

Which nobleman, mourning his late wife, was the real anonymous patron of the Requiem in Amadeus?

Count Walsegg probably meant to pass the piece off as his own work, as he had done with other music. The film hands that scheme to Salieri instead.

Which pupil of Mozart, rather than Salieri, really completed the Requiem left unfinished in Amadeus?

Franz Xaver Süssmayr finished the score in an imitation of Mozart's handwriting, so that the widow could hand it over as her husband's work and collect the rest of the fee.

Which stormy Mozart work, known as the Little G minor, opens the film Amadeus?

Symphony No. 25 is one of only two symphonies Mozart ever wrote in a minor key, and both are in G minor. He was 17 when he finished it.

Which Italian composer joked to Salieri's face in 1822 about the rumour that he poisoned Mozart?

Rossini was in Vienna to a hero's welcome that year, and teased the old man about the story when they met. Salieri denied it to a friend from his hospital bed.

The Library of Congress selected Amadeus in 2019 for which roll of culturally significant films?

The National Film Registry takes up to 25 titles a year, and a film must wait ten years after release to qualify. Amadeus waited 35.

Which film composer joked at the 1985 Oscars that he was lucky Mozart was not eligible?

Maurice Jarre was collecting the Best Original Score award for A Passage to India, the film that tied Amadeus with eleven nominations.

Which comic role does the showman Schikaneder play on stage in Amadeus, as he really did in 1791?

Papageno, the bird-catcher, was tailored to Schikaneder's clowning. The real showman also wrote the opera's words and ran the suburban theatre that staged it.