Jack Chambers and Aimie Atkinson in Saving Mozart at The Other Palace, London. Picture: Danny Kaan
Saving Mozart continues at The Other Palace, London until 30 August 2025.
Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩
Anybody who knows anything about the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has most likely had that biography shaped, at least in part, by Peter Shaffer’s play Amadeus and its Oscar-laden film adaptation.
That work, though, deliberately takes liberties with its story, using false rumours that Antonio Salieri had poisoned Mozart (who died at the age of 35) and twisting them into fact. New musical Saving Mozart attempts to look instead at the Austrian composer’s life through a different lens, through the three people who writer and composer Charli Eglinton claims were much stronger influences on his life: his older sister Maria Anna (known by her family nickname of Nannerl), his aggressive father Leopold, and his wife Constanze.
Eighteenth century Salzburg is presented here as a variation of our own time; Julia Pschdezki’s costumes may have echoes of the era’s silhouettes, but the materials are either pinstripes or wafts of fabric – many of which have raw, unhemmed edges, giving an undeserved air of cheapness amongst what is otherwise inventive work.
And save for a few places, Eglinton’s music is striking in its modernity, too. We hear snippets of ‘Eine kleine Nachtmusik’ and the Queen of the Night’s aria from The Magic Flute at the beginning, but much of the rest is bass-heavy pop rock. Nor is Wolfgang the initial focus; the Mozart who first celebrates that name is Aimie Atkinson’s Nannerl, herself a gifted performer who the family patriarch Leopold (Douglas Hansell) is carting around Europe with a young ‘Wolfie’ in tow. At this point, Jack Chambers’ adult Mozart is a spectral observer; while this allows for a young performer to take on the role (with Izzie Monk and Carla Lopez Corpas sharing responsibilities) it backgrounds the real version of the titular character.
Structurally there are other issues. Taking a purely chronological approach to Mozart’s life from young child to adult means that Erin Caldwell’s Constanze is onstage for all of 30 seconds in Act I, before coming to dominate the post-interval narrative.
The approach does allow for Gloria Onitiri to create two very different characters – as Wolfgang’s mother Anna Maria in Act I she is the level-headed, beloved matriarch in contrast to her mercurial, obsessive husband. In Act II she reappears as Constanze’s mother, a slightly squiffy boarding house landlady. With just a comedic gait and dismissive, sneering look, Onitiri demonstrates how, like many of the performers here, she is more capable than Eglington’s book would otherwise allow her to be (at one early point, Onitiri’s Anna Maria spits out to her husband, “it was never about God, was it?”, a line that would be a lot easier to land if anyone had ever suggested that his quest to make his children famous might have been about God in the first place).
Throughout, it is quite hard to work out what Eglinton hopes to achieve with the show’s construction. Several of the show’s musical numbers suggest a desire for a closer affinity to Lin-Manuel Miranda than Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, feelings reinforced by co-director Taylor Walker’s impressively stylised and mannered choreography. The influence of Hamilton can be seen throughout, through to the show’s final coda that suggests that who lives, who dies, who tells your story isn’t just important to US founding fathers.
Otherwise, Saving Mozart struggles to find its own identity. There are bright spots, most of which happen in Act II as Caldwell really makes her presence felt as Constanze. She is formally introduced in a number which heavily reworks The Magic Flute’s most beloved aria into a spirited alto register. Elsewhere, the same opera’s overture is remixed into a rock beat. It is during such moments that one feels that the musical could really have something if it leant it to that idea a bit more. It might be cheesy to remix Mozart’s melodies into pop songs, but it would at least have delivered a connection between subject and material that is otherwise lacking – and allowed compositions other the The Magic Flute to gain recognition.
Salieri does, of course, make his presence felt, although Eglinton keeps him at arm’s length throughout. Whether that’s to avoid an overlap with Shaffer’s version of Mozart’s story or not, it does mean that Jordan Luke Gage is criminally underused. His Emo-Goth version of Mozart’s great rival is a lot of fun in the small doses we are granted, though.
In all, Saving Mozart is one of those frustrating musicals that one dearly wants to like, but is continually presented with reasons not to. When presenting the story of a musical genius, we need musical theatre to elevate itself to the subject’s high standards – and instead, it falls short.
Scott Matthewman
SHARE THIS POST:
Comments are closed.