Mozart's Apartment
Salieri (to the audience) Now for the first time I saw the place to which I had consigned him. A filthy chamber in total disorder. Empty bottles every-where-discarded linen-and across the floor an inky pavement of fresh manuscripts, stirring in icy gusts from ill-fitting windows.... I knew at once what these must be!... As for his face, it held a look I'd never seen before not madness at all, but some deep-possessing physical sickness!
Mozart Tell me, my friend-what are you doing here so late? It is late, isn't it?
Salieri I came to see you. I've been concerned.... Let me ask you what you are doing. Surely you're not working at this hour?
Mozart (guiltily) No, not really!
Salieri (indicating the floor) Well, what's all this?
Mozart Nothing! Just silliness.... A new piece.
Salieri (sharply) The Requiem! It's the Requiem isn't it?
Mozart (defensively) I know. It's stupid. That Messenger isn't real-you told me. All the same, there's no point in taking chances, is there? If he suddenly appeared and there was nothing for him, I'd look foolish. Mind you, it's not nearly finished. Time was when I could have finished a Mass in a week. Not anymore.... To be exact, I'm feeling very poorly.
Salieri(concerned) My friend!
Mozart It's true. My body hurts all day my joints, my head.... And I know why! (Confidentially) I've been poisoned.
Salieri Poisoned?
Mozart They say the Masons poison people who offend them! (In panic) I didn't mean that!... (Defiantly) I'll tell you one thing, though. If he comes too soon, that Messenger, I'll say it to his face: "Tell your master from me, if He takes me too quick, there won't be a Mass so there!" He can hiss at me all he likes.
Pause
Salieri (carefully) My friend, what are you saying?
Mozart Isn't it obvious? (Pause) It's for me, that's all.
Salieri What is?
Mozart(factually) The Mass. It's for me. Myself. ... It's ordered. I am to write my own!
Pause
Why order a Requiem if no-one's going to die! ... You know, the worst thing is denying me proper time. That really shames me. I've never done that in my life offered unfinished work.
Salieri looks at him astounded
I wonder, sir, if you could oblige me take a look at it, just a page or two, and tell me if it's worthy. You see, I don't know anymore. Everything's leaving me. Now the sounds: they're running away! My hand is tired-it's written too much-it can't catch the notes now.... The Kyrie's finished -you only need read that. (He picks a few pages s of manuscript off the table) Kyrie the first theme Eleison the second: both together make a double fugue. My father would've approved that at least. He'd say, "Only you, my boy. Only you could have done it!"... Please.
Urgently he proffers the pages. Reluctantly Salieri takes them and sits to read. Immediately we hear the sombre opening of the Requiem Mass
(Over this) Oh it began so well, my life. Once the world was so full, so happy. All the journeys all the carriages all the rooms of smiles! Everyone smiled at me once the King at Schonbrunn: the Princess al Versailles they lit my way personally to the keyboard! Papa bowing. bowing, bowing with such joy! "Chevalier Mozart, my miraculous son!"... Why has it all gone?... Was I so wicked?... (Outraged) Why must I go?
Salieri is reading the score with increasing disturbance. Suddenly he crumples the paper. Instantly the sound stops. He sits, deeply shaken and alarmed
(Watching him, in panic) It's bad, isn't it? It's bad!
Salieri (slowly) Bad? ... It will help the ages to mourn.
Mozart(fervently) Oh grazie.... Grazie, Signore! (He reaches out in gratitude, and freezes)
Salieri (to the Audience) What could I say? In my shaking hands I held a terrible contradiction that only Art can show. Something immortal-stinking of death. Indestructible yet rotting! (He gives a faint gasp) Suddenly I was seized by an overwhelming horror!
Mozart (unfreezing) I bless you.
Salieri (still to the Audience, clutching the manuscript) Who was this for, this appalling music? Not himself. Of course not himself! What need to mourn a man who will live forever?
Mozart I bless you, Signore!
Salieri (still to the Audience) Who, then? (He rises in growing distress)
Mozart I cannot believe you came here. Sought me out. No-one seeks me anymore.... Only you my one Protector (kneeling and laying his cheek against the man's hand) Antonio. (In this gesture he freezes again)
The grim Kyrie is now heard continuing. Over it, in huge anguish, Salieri speaks
Salieri (to the Audience) I stood there- his despairing Mass sounding over and over in my head its gigantic lamentation and knew absolutely who it was for!... The boy!... That cager boy who once stumbled around the fields of Lombardy, singing up his anthems to his Lord. (Pause) In ten years of unrelenting spite I had destroyed myself!
The music stops
And then-any feelings still left uncorrupted in me rose up, crying. "End this! Before it is too late!... Confess! Confess to him!... Get from him whatever Absolution he can possibly grant. He he alone! Creature you have broken.... How else can you live on after?"
A pause, Salieri tries to find the strength to begin
Wolfgang, you must hear me.
Mozart raises his head and looks at him
You are right. You are poisoned. It is true.
Mozart What do you mean?
Salieri By me! No-one else.... We are both poisoned. Both together.
Mozart (bewildered) I don't understand.
Salieri Both. Both. With each other.
Nervously Mozart rises
Mozart Excuse me, sir. I'm stupid sometimes.....
Mozart starts to back away. Salieri follows him. The scene quickens
Salieri You with me. I with you! (In his urgency he relapses into his native tongue, gesturing urgently) Si! Tutti due! Tutti due!... Tu con me! Io con te! (He holds up the manuscript Kyrie) I eat what God gives me. Dose after dose. For all of life!... His poison! (Savagely his teeth a piece of the manuscript and chews it fiercely then quickly spits it out and throws out his arms widely) Eccomi! Antonio Salieri!.... Il tuo Nemico!.... Il tuo Assassino! (In pain) II tua morte!
He clasps his breast in a sign for swearing, but Mozart only bursts out laughing and clapping delightedly
Mozart Bravo! Bravissimo!. Signore, are you perhaps a little tiddly? (Amused) I think you are!... Tiddly-widdly! (Mock scolding) You had some before you came! I thought that might be so!
Salieri (desperately) Wolfgang, you must hear me now.
Mozart (giggling defensively) Tiddly-widdly-piddly!... Well, why not? It's a cold night.... And a good performance!
Salieri (raising his voice) No you have to listen!... Understand what has been done to you.
Mozart What??... Why are you being like this? ... It's stupid! (With sudden apprehension) Why have you come here?... What do you want?...
Mozartretreats across the room to the table. Salieri moves after him relentlessly. His manner becomes increasingly out of control
Salieri Don't you know at all what I have endured from you?... From the day you appeared I have lived in Hell.... What I did to you was nothing to what you did to me!
Mozart Stop this, please, Signore, I don't know what you're saying!
Salieri My God smiled and permitted it!... Whatever I did you would fill the world! (Outraged) You left me with nothing! (He forces himself to smile, his manner wheedling) No matter. You're not to blame, It's His will. I don't hate you you're only an instrument.
Mozart Signore, please!... This makes no sense.
Salieri (agreeing, gleefully) No! No! None! ... And now you're going. You're right: He's finished with you. You're too feeble to be used anymore. Worn through!... And He does not care, Amadeus. God does not care! He cares nothing for whom He uses nothing for whom He denies! We are equal at least in that.... Ha?
Mozart(distressed) Stop this! Stop it at once! You're frightening! (Like a child he puts his hands over his ears)
Salieri(urgently, seizing his arm) Be merciful, therefore! Show mercy because we can! That's for us alone to do us, not Him! Us!... He can't!... (Urgently) Grant me forgiveness, Wolfgang, for pity's sake..... You have to! You must! You must!
Mozart (revolting) NO! ... It is stupid!
With all his strength Mozart pushes Salieri away. Salieri staggers back. Mozart glares at him.
(Suddenly, like a scared child) Go away! (He stamps his foot) Go away....
Now!!
He makes fierce little jabs of dismissal and, when Salieri does not move. defiantly shoots out his lips and emits one of his fart noises. And another more challenging. Then suddenly he snatches up his blanket and runs headlong across the room, skitters to a stop and falls to the floor, hurling the blanket over his head and holding it tight to conceal himself entirely. Under this covering he sits quite still. Salieri approaches him carefully
Salieri (quietly) Wolfgang?... Wolfgang, hear me one last time.
The muffled figure starts to rock slowly to and fro. Salieri kneels directly behind him. He speaks simply
I'm begging now. On my knees. Grant me Absolution.
Under his blanket Mozart starts faintly to sing his father's bedtime "Kissing Song" nonsense Italianate words to the tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star!"
Mozart (singing) "Oragna figata fa! Marina gamina fa!" (And the sound of three kisses)
Salieri (greedily) L'Assoluzione! L'Assoluzione! (Pronounced "L'Ahsolutsiohnay!")
The song comes again, in strict repetition, together with the kisses. This Mozart now repeats again and again without stopping, a little louder and more desperately each time
Salieri (over this with hard intensity) For all my sins against you damages unnumbered slanders unnumbered foul thoughts unnumbered endless injury and endless wrongs absolve my wicked soul!
The singing has grown faster and mechanical, as if being used as a charm to keep him at bay. Above it Salieri finally cries out to the impervious figure. his hands clasped tightly before him, as if in prayer
Dammi!... Dammi!... Ti imploro! ... (In great distress) L'Ass-o-luzi-one!....
The singing stops. Salieri waits, expectantly. A pause
(Whispering) Amadeus!
Silence
Amadeus!!...
But the singing implacably resumes. And then suddenly - violently Salieri raises his clenched hands high, and for a moment they stay poised as if he might smash them down on Mozart's unseeing head but he cannot. Finally, he lets them fall again, powerlessly, to his sides. Mozart's singing sounds much lower in volume, and becomes a frightened, speedy gabble. Salieri rises to his feet
(Coldly, to the Audience) Reduce the man reduce the God. Behold my vow fulfilled. The profoundest voice in the world reduced to a nursery tune.
Mozart stops singing
(Very bitterly) And so finally I left. Refused. Unheard! (Looking to heaven) Of course! (He is almost laughing) Of course!... (To God) Grazie per sempre!! (He takes a step downstage towards the Audience) And never-never after could I confess to anyone. Until I summoned You tonight. (Pause) My last.
He moves to one side
Constanze appears upstage, bonnet in hand and wearing a shawl. She has returned from Baden. She comes downstage toward the blanketed figure on the floor
Constanze (tentatively) Wolfi?... I'm back.
Mozart (hardly daring to believe it) Stanzi?
Constanze Yes, my love.... Little-husband-of-my-heart! Mozart Oh!
She bends down and helps him to his feet. He is very frail now - they embrace, he clinging to her in overwhelming pleasure
Constanze I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry
Mozart gives a groan
Oh my dear.... Come now ... There ... come with me.... Come on, now. There
She helps him gently to move around the table to the chair behind it. Mozart sits weakly
Mozart (like a child still, and most earnestly) Salieri... Salieri has killed me.
Constanze (indulgently) Yes, my dear. (Practically she busies herself clearing the table of its manuscripts, its candle, its boules and its inkwell) Mozart He has! He told me so. Constanze Yes, yes: I'm sure. (She finds the chair cushions and places them at the head of the table) Mozart (petulantly) He did ... He did! Constanze Hush now, lovey. She helps her dying husband on to the table, now his bed. He lies down, and she covers him with her shawl I'm back to take care of you. I'm here now for always! Mozart (in distress) Salieri.... Salieri.... (He starts to weep) Constanze Oh lovey, be silent now. No-one has hurt you. You'll get better soon, I promise. The Venticelli steal in to Salieri Venticello 1 (quietly) Dr Closset says there's little hope. Venticello 2 No point in seeing him at all. (together) And especially as he cannot pay. Venticello 1 They say he's still trying to finish that Mass. Venticello 2 But little wife won't let him, anymore! The Venticelli leave Faintly the Lacrimosa of the Requiem Mass begins to sound. Mozart sits up to hear it-leaning against his wife's shoulders. His hand begins feebly beat out drum measures from the music. During the whole of the following it is evident that he is composing the Mass in his head, and does not hear his wife at all Constanze Can you hear me? Try to, Wolferl... Wolfi-polfi ... Try to hear. If I've been a bore if I've nagged a bit about money, it didn't mean anything. It's only because I'm spoilt. You spoilt me, lovey. You've got to get well, Wolfi because we need you. Karl and Baby Franz as well. There's only the three of us: we don't cost much. Just don't leave us we wouldn't know what to do without you. And you wouldn't know much either up in Heaven, without us. You soppy thing. You can't even cut up your own meat without help!... I'm not clever, lovey. It can't have been easy living with a goose. But I've looked after you, you must admit that. And I've given you fun too quite a lot, really! ... Are you listening? Mozart's drum strokes get slower, and stop Know one thing. It was the best day of my life when you married me. And as long as I live I'll be the most honoured woman in the world.... Can you hear me? She becomes aware that Mozart is dead. She opens her mouth in a silent scream, raising her arm in a rigid gesture of grief. The great chord of the "Amen" does not resolve itself, but lingers on in intense reverberation The Citizens of Vienna enter, dressed in black. Constanze kneels and freezes in grief as Servants come in and stand at the four corners of the table on which the body lies. Van Swieten also enters Salieri (hard) The Death Certificate said kidney failure, hastened by explosure to cold. Generous Lord Fugue paid for a pauper's funeral. Twenty other corpses. An unmarked lime pit. Van Swieten approaches Constanze Van Swieten What I can spare, you shall have for the children. There's no need to waste it on vain show. The Servants lift the table and bear it with its burden upstage c, to the Light Box, in which a cemetery appears, in stormy light Salieri What did I feel?... Pity! Pity at last! for the man I helped to destroy. I felt the pity my God can never feel! ... I weakened God's flute to a thinness, God blew as He must without cease. The flute split in the mouth of His insatiable need! Some of the Citizens kneel, and the Servants swiftly tip the table: Mozart's body slides down into a pit at the back. We hear the sound of crows briefly cawing and flapping up. The cemetery fades. The Citizens rise in the dark and face the back Constanze unfreezes and starts assiduously collecting the manuscripts scattered all over the floor. Salieri now speaks with an increasingly ageing voice: a sound soured more and more with its owner's bitterness As for Constanze, in the fullness of time she married again a Danish diplomat, as dull as a clock and retired to Salzburg, birthplace of the Great Composer, to become the pious keeper of his shrine. Constanze rises, wrapping her shawl about her, and clasping manuscripts to her bosom Constanze (reverentially) A sweeter-tongued man never lived. In ten years of blissful marriage I never heard him utter a single coarse or conceited word. The purity of his life is reflected absolutely in the purity of his music! (More briskly) In selling his manuscripts I charge by the ink. So many notes, so many schillings... That seems to me the simplest way. Constanze leaves the stage, a pillar of rectitude Salieri One amazing fact emerged concerning that mysterious Messenger with the skeletal face and the (imitating it) sinister rasping voice, who came to commission the Requiem. Mozart had not imagined him. He was real! ... The man was the excessively bony servant of an eccentric nobleman, who longed to write music and be praised for it. His wife had just died, so he sent this servant in deepest secrecy to order a Mass from Mozart. Incredibly the nobleman's plan was actually to copy out the manuscript himself and pass it off as his own work! (Pause) It would seen there is literally nothing a man won't stoop to in order to be thought a great composer! The Lights come up The Citizens turn around and advance on Salieri, bowing to him, and kissing their hands extravagantly. During his following speech they all fall on their knees in an adoring ring around him, clapping their hands at him with silent vigour and relentlessly extending their arms upwards and upwards, until they seem to obliterate him And so I stayed on in the City of Musicians, reverenced by all: On and on and on for thirty-two years. And slowly I came to understand the nature of God's punishment. (Demanding directly of the Audience) What had 1 asked for in that church as a boy? Was it not fame? Well now I had it! I was to become, quite simply, the most famous musician in Europe!... I was to be bricked up in fame! Buried in fame! Embalmed in farme! This was my sentence I must endure thirty-two years of being called "distin-guished" by people incapable of distinguishing!... And finally whenmy nose had been rubbed in fame to vomiting Receptions, Awards, Civic Medals, and Chains - suddenly, his masterstroke! The Citizens freeze It would all be taken away from me every scrap. The Citizens rise, turn away from him and walk indifferently off stage The finale of the Jupiter Symphony is heard, swelling louder (Over the music) Mozart's music would sound everywhere and mine in no place on earth. I must survive to see myself become... extinct.... (Calling up savagely) Nemico dei Nemici! Dio implacabile! The curtains of the Light Box close A Servant brings on the wheelchair and places it centrally, as before. Another Servant brings on the old dressing-gown, shawl and turban Salieri divests himself of his cloak and puts on these former clothes, once more becoming the old man. He sits in the wheelchair. The Lights change. Six o'clock strikes The Servants leave, taking the cloak and hat Salieri's Apartments November 1823. Six o'clock Salieri (to the Audience) Dawn has come. I must release you. One moment's violence and it is over. You see, I cannot accept this. To be sucked into oblivion not even my name remembered. Oh no: I did not live on earth to be His joke for eternity. I have one trick left me see how He deals with this! (Confidentially) All this week I have been shouting about murder. You heard me yourselves do you remember? "Mozart-pietà ! Pardon your assassin! Mozart!" Whispers of "Salieri" begin: at first faintly, as at the start of the play. During the following they grow in volume, in strict and operatic counterpoint to Salieri's speeches Whisperers (faintly) Salieri! Salieri (triumphantly) I did this deliberately!... My servants carried the news into the streets! Whisperers (louder) Salieri! Salieri The streets repeated it to one another! Whisperers (louder) Salieri!... Salieri! Salieri Now my name is on every tongue! Vienna, City of Scandals, has a scandal worthy of it at last! Whisperers SALIERI!.... ASSASSIN! .... ASSASSIN! .... SALIERI! Salieri (falsetto; enjoying it) "Can it be true?... Is it possible?... Did he do it after all?..." Whisperers (fortissimo) SALIERI!!! Salieri Well my friends, now they all will know for sure! They will learn of my dreadful death and they will believe the lie forever! After today, whenever men speak of Mozart's name with love, they will speak mine with loathing! As his name grows in the world so will mine - if not in fame, then in infamy. I'm going to be immortal after all! And He will be powerless to prevent that!... (He laughs harshly) So, Signore-see now if man is mocked! He rises, walks forward and addresses the Audience simply, gently and directly Amici cari. I was born a pair of ears, and nothing else. It is only through hearing music that I know God exists. Only through writing music that I could worship... All around me men hunger for General Rights. I hungered only for particular notes. They seek Liberty for Mankind. I sought only slavery for myself. To be owned ordered- exhausted by an Absolute. Music. This was denied me and with it all meaning. He produces a cut-throat razor from his dressing-gown pocket.and carefully opens it Now I go to become a ghost myself. I will stand in the shadows when you come here to this earth in your turns. And when you feel the dreadful bite of your failures and hear the taunting of unachievable, uncaring God I will whisper my name to you: "Antonio Salieri: Patron Saint of Mediocrities!" And in the depth of your downcastness you can pray to me. And I will forgive you. Vi Saluto. He cuts his throat and falls backwards into the wheelchair. Mozart's sombre Masonic Funeral Music sounds in the background The Cook enters carrying a plate of buns for breakfast and, seeing Salieri, screams in horror. The Valet rushes in from the other side Together they pull the wheelchair with its slumped body backwards upstage. and anchor it midstage The Venticelli appear again, in the costume of 1823. Venticello 1 carries books and a newspaper Venticello 1 Beethoven's Conversation Book, November eighteen twenty-three. Visitors write the news for the deaf man. He hands a book to Venticello 2 Venticello 2 (reading) "Salieri has cut his throat but is still alive!" Salieri stirs and comes to life, sitting up and looking about him in outraged bewilderment The Valet and Cook depart Salieri stares out front like an astonished gargoyle Venticello 1 Beethoven's Conversation Book, eighteen twenty-four. Visitors write the news for the deaf man, He hands another book to Venticello 2 Venticello 2 (reading) "Salieri is quite deranged. He keeps claiming that he is guilty of Mozart's death, and made away with him by poison." The Lights narrow to a bright cone, beating on Salieri Venticello 1 The German Musical Times, May twenty-fifth, eighteen twenty-five. He hands the newspaper to Venticello 2 Venticello 2 (reading) "Our worthy Salieri just cannot die. In the frenzy of his imagination he is even said to accuse himself of complicity in Mozart's early death. A rambling of the mind believed in truth by no-one but the deluded old man himself." The music stops Salieri lowers his head, conceding defeat Venticello 1 I don't believe it. Venticello 2 I don't believe it. Venticello 1 I don't believe it. Venticello 2 I don't believe it. (together) No-one believes it in the world! The Venticelli go off The Lights dim a little. Salieri stirs, rises, comes down front and looks out far into the darkness of the theatre Salieri Mediocrities everywhere now and to come I absolve you all. Amen! (He extends his arms upwards and ourwards to embrace the assembled Audience in a wide gesture of benediction-finally folding his arms high across his own breast) The Lights fade to Black-out and the last four chords of the Masonic Funeral Music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart sound throughout the theatre CURTAIN