Free Republic

Was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart murdered by Italian composer and contemporary Antonio Salieri? Rumors have persisted since Mozart’s death in 1791. But the idea truly went global nearly 200 years later with the appearance of Peter Shaffer’s fictionalized account of the life and death of Mozart as seen through the eyes of his contemporary and competitor Salieri in Amadeus, first the Tony award-winning play in 1979, and the then the film of the same name by Milos Foreman which won an Oscar for Best Picture in 1985. Scholars have largely and uniformly debunked the theory, including Shaffer’s portrayal of Salieri as...

It is 30 years since Amadeus swept the board at the Academy Awards. Miloš Forman’s 1984 film of Peter Shaffer’s 1979 play, took home eight statuettes that night, including best film, best director, best actor and best adapted screenplay. Arguably the finest movie ever made about the process of artistic creation and the unbridgeable gap between human genius and mediocrity, it has taken its place in motion picture history and is invariably described as a masterpiece. All this is despite the fact the film plays shamelessly fast and loose with historical fact, taking as its basis a supposedly bitter rivalry...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Forget the movie, Cecilia Bartoli says. Antonio Salieri isn't the bad guy who poisoned Mozart. He's an underappreciated genius who paved the path for Beethoven. Following hit recordings of works by Vivaldi and Gluck, Bartoli is touring the United States to support her latest project, "The Salieri Album," which contains 13 arias from the seldom-heard composer. Some of the pieces were so obscure that they had to be found in a Vienna library -- only two of the arias had ever been recorded.