Tom Hulce's laugh is semi-historical, though he had trouble recreating it. The next day was a concerto." And for that scene at the masquerade ball when Mozart plays a tune while lying on his back? That was really Hulce. “The first two days were scales and exercises. "I spent four weeks, four to five hours a day learning to play,” Hulce told People in 1984. Although he knew some basics-he could read music, and had played violin and sung in choirs as a child-he needed to look like a natural. In order to look believable on camera, Hulce spent a month with a piano teacher before filming. Tom Hulce practiced piano for four to five hours a day. "I thought, 'God will truly punish me if this place catches on fire,'" she said. Patrizia von Brandenstein-who became the first woman to win the Oscar for Best Art Direction with this movie-had nightmares about damaging the all-wooden opera house. We were lighting people on stage, and these guys were whipping these torches around." We could have burnt down the opera house. And none of the opera house had been touched since he was there," choreographer Twyla Tharp recalled in 2015. The Tyl Theatre in Prague was the original theater where Don Giovanni first premiered in October 1787, and the authenticity of the building was a huge boon for the production since it had hardly been updated since it was first built in 1783. Mozart's frequent collaborator Emanuel Schikaneder was played by another stage Mozart. Though Mozart was a rock star in his day, actual rock star Mick Jagger was also turned down after his audition. Other actors who auditioned for the Mozart role included Tim Curry and Mel Gibson. In his autobiography, he wrote that he thought he had the part in the bag until Forman informed him they were casting Americans for the leads. Kenneth Branagh legitimately thought he had landed the lead role.Ī young Kenneth Branagh was an early contender for the part of Mozart. “He was very upfront about it, and I appreciated that rather than getting my hopes up that it was possible I’d be playing the role.” 3. “Miloš Forman told me, ‘Oh no, you must not play the Mozart because the people not believing the Luke Spacewalker as Mozart,’” Hamill said in a 1986 interview. But when the time came for the movie to be made, Czech director Miloš Forman couldn’t get the space cowboy image out of his head. In an attempt to circumvent any typecasting he might get after three blockbuster Star Wars films launched his career, Mark Hamill played the composer on Broadway for nine months in 1983. Mark Hamill wanted the lead role, but Milos Forman wouldn't let him audition. The production won five Tonys, including Best Play and Best Actor for McKellen, who beat out Curry for the award the two leads had been nominated in the same category. Amadeus played in various theaters in London beginning in 1979, then premiered on Broadway in 1980 with Ian McKellen as Antonio Salieri, Tim Curry as Mozart, and Jane Seymour as Constanze, Mozart's wife. Russian poet/playwright Alexander Pushkin wrote a short play in 1830 called Mozart and Salieri, and playwright Peter Shaffer-who was already a Tony winner for Equus-took inspiration from that to write his own play. Amadeus began life as a Tony Award-winning play. Here's a look back at the Oscar-winning biopic that not only brought renewed interest to Mozart's music in the 1980s, but inspired Austrian rocker Falco to write the chart-topping " Rock Me Amadeus." Poor Salieri never stood a chance. Though much has been written about the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the most entertaining look at the master composer's life might very well be Amadeus, Milos Forman's film about the artist's life (and rivalries), which was released on September 19, 1984.
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