Preparing for the role of Salieri in Peter Shaffer's Amadeus
Written Concept
Amadeus – Peter Shaffer
The monologue I’ll be performing is taken from Peter Shaffer’s play ‘Amadeus’, a fictionalised account of the lives of composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri. I shall be playing Salieri, court composer of the Habsburg court of Vienna in the 18th century and the early part of the 19th, around the time of Mozart’s rise to fame. He is bitter and jealous of Mozart and his popularity, and in the monologue he turns to God and asks what he has done to deserve this. He has worked his entire life to get to where he is and yet along comes young Mozart who seems to be able to put quill to parchment effortlessly and churn out stunning symphonies.
I researched the role by looking for as many performances of the play as I could, seeing how previous actors had played the role, and taking inspiration and crafting my own interpretation of the role. I experimented a lot with my voice to try and find my own sound for Salieri, and practiced the monologue in different tones and accents. I played around a lot with giving Salieri an Italian accent, with him being Italian, but I soon decided that the audience would find the piece more relatable if I sticked with a British accent. I bring my voice to a lower pitch than my own for Salieri, and intentionally make it crack in the more emotional parts (“And then suddenly, high above it…”). I also lisp and switch from my chest voice to my head voice in the more emotional parts. I utilise my ability to cry on command in parts, forcing my chest to wobble and my eyes to well up, and some words I spit out as if I’m in pain. I keep my eye-level slightly above the audience for the first part of the monologue, and then when Salieri starts talking about God I take it higher, as if I’m speaking to the sky. I use pauses in parts to create suspense, and keep very still throughout a lot of it, until “And then suddenly” when I jump out of my chair, eyes wide, jaw dropped, and use my hands to
Amadeus – Peter Shaffer
The monologue I’ll be performing is taken from Peter Shaffer’s play ‘Amadeus’, a fictionalised account of the lives of composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri. I shall be playing Salieri, court composer of the Habsburg court of Vienna in the 18th century and the early part of the 19th, around the time of Mozart’s rise to fame. He is bitter and jealous of Mozart and his popularity, and in the monologue he turns to God and asks what he has done to deserve this. He has worked his entire life to get to where he is and yet along comes young Mozart who seems to be able to put quill to parchment effortlessly and churn out stunning symphonies.
I researched the role by looking for as many performances of the play as I could, seeing how previous actors had played the role, and taking inspiration and crafting my own interpretation of the role. I experimented a lot with my voice to try and find my own sound for Salieri, and practiced the monologue in different tones and accents. I played around a lot with giving Salieri an Italian accent, with him being Italian, but I soon decided that the audience would find the piece more relatable if I sticked with a British accent. I bring my voice to a lower pitch than my own for Salieri, and intentionally make it crack in the more emotional parts (“And then suddenly, high above it…”). I also lisp and switch from my chest voice to my head voice in the more emotional parts. I utilise my ability to cry on command in parts, forcing my chest to wobble and my eyes to well up, and some words I spit out as if I’m in pain. I keep my eye-level slightly above the audience for the first part of the monologue, and then when Salieri starts talking about God I take it higher, as if I’m speaking to the sky. I use pauses in parts to create suspense, and keep very still throughout a lot of it, until “And then suddenly” when I jump out of my chair, eyes wide, jaw dropped, and use my hands to