Amadeus

Salieri:
I was staring through the cage of those meticulous ink strokes - at an absolute beauty.

Katerina Cavalieri:
I heard you met Herr Mozart.

Salieri:
News travels fast in Vienna.

Katerina Cavalieri:
And he's been commissioned to write an opera. Is it true?

Salieri:
Yes.

Katerina Cavalieri:
Is there a part in it for me?

Salieri:
No.

Katerina Cavalieri:
How would you know?

Salieri:
Do you know where it's set, my dear?

Katerina Cavalieri:
No.

Salieri:
In a harem.

Katerina Cavalieri:
What's that?

Salieri:
A brothel!

Katerina Cavalieri:
Oh-h-h-h.

Emperor Joseph II:
Well, there it is.

Salieri:
God was singing through this little man to all the world, making my defeat more bitter with every passing bar. But then, do you know what happened? A miracle!

Salieri:
He was my idol. I can't think of a time when I didn't know his name.

Emperor Joseph II:
Your work is ingenious. It's quality work. And there are simply too many notes, that's all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:
Which few did you have in mind, Majesty?

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:
"Confutatis maledictis" - when the wicked are confounded. "Flammis Acribus Adictis." How would you translate that?

Salieri:
Consigned to flames of woe.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:
Do you believe it?

Salieri:
What?

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:
A fire which never dies, burning you forever?

Salieri:
Oh yes.

Salieri:
From now on we are enemies, You and I. Because You choose for Your instrument a boastful, lustful, smutty, infantile boy and give me only the ability to recognize the incarnation. Because You are unjust, unfair, unkind I will block You, I swear it. I will hinder and harm Your creature on Earth as far as I am able. I will ruin Your incarnation.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:
Forgive me, Majesty. I am a vulgar man! But I assure you, my music is not.

Father Vogler:
Oh, that's charming! I'm sorry; I didn't know you wrote that.

Salieri:
I didn't. That was Mozart.

Salieri:
My plan was so simple that it terrified me. First I must get the death mass and then I, I must achieve his death.

Father Vogler:
What?

Salieri:
His funeral! Imagine it, all of Vienna there, Mozart's coffin, Mozart's little coffin in the middle, and then suddenly, in that silence, music! A divine music bursts out over them all. A great mass of death! Requiem mass for Wolfgang Mozart, composed by his dear friend, Antonio Salieri! Oh what sublimity, what depth, what passion in the music! Salieri has been touched by God at last. And God is forced to listen! Powerless, powerless to stop it! I, for once in the end, laughing at him! The only thing that bothered me was the actual killing. How does one do that? Hmmm? How does one kill a man? Well it's one thing to dream about it; very different when you, when you have to do it with your own hands.

Salieri:
Displace one note and there would be diminishment, displace one phrase and the structure would fall.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:
Come on now, be honest! Which one of you wouldn't rather listen to his hairdresser than Hercules? Or Horatius, or Orpheus... people so lofty they sound as if they sh*t marble!

Salieri:
Your... merciful God. He destroyed His own beloved, rather than let a mediocrity share in the smallest part of His glory.

Salieri:
Actually, the man had no ear at all. But what did it matter? He adored my music.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:
They're all so beautiful. Why don't I have three heads?

Salieri:
I will speak for you, Father. I speak for all mediocrities in the world. I am their champion. I am their patron saint.

Salieri:
Mediocrities everywhere... I absolve you. I absolve you. I absolve you. I absolve you. I absolve you all.

Katerina Cavalieri:
Looks don't concern me, Maestro. Only talent interests a woman of taste.

Salieri:
While my father prayed earnestly to God to protect commerce, I would offer up secretly the proudest prayer a boy could think of: Lord, make me a great composer. Let me celebrate Your glory through music and be celebrated myself. Make me famous through the world. Dear God make me immortal. After I die let people speak my name forever with love for what I wrote. In return I will give You my chastity, my industry, my deepest humility, every hour of my life, Amen.

Mozart:
Keep it Majesty, if you want. It's already here in my head.

Emperor Joseph II:
What? On one hearing only?

Mozart:
I think so, Sire, yes.

Emperor Joseph II:
Show us.

Salieri:
Can you remember no melody of mine? I was the most famous composer in Europe. I wrote 40 operas alone.

Katerina Cavalieri:
Is that woman still lying on the floor?

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:
That doesn't really work, does it?

Salieri:
You don't mean to tell me that you're living in poverty?

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:
No. But I'm broke.

Emanuel Schikaneder:
Herr Mozart, why don't you name your son's penalty?

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:
Yes, papa. Name it. Name it, I'll do anything you say. Anything.

Leopold Mozart:
I want you to come back to Salzburg with me, my son.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:
Papa, the rule is you can only give a penalty that can be performed in the room.

Leopold Mozart:
I'm tired of this game, I don't want to play anymore.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:
But my penalty!

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:
I've got to have a penalty!

Mozart:
Why must I submit samples of my work to some stupid committee just to teach a thirteen-year-old girl?

Count Von Strack:
Because his majesty wishes it.

Mozart:
Is the emperor angry with me?

Count Von Strack:
Quite the contrary.

Mozart:
Then why doesn't he simply appoint me to the post?

Count Von Strack:
Mozart, you are not the only composer in Vienna.

Mozart:
No. But I'm the best!

Mozart:
It's unbelievable, the director has actually torn up a huge section of my music. They say I have to rewrite the opera. But it's perfect as it is! I can't rewrite what's perfect!

Constanze Mozart:
Wolfie, I think you really are going mad. You work like a slave for that idiot actor who won't give you a penny. And here, this is not a ghost! This is a real man who puts down real money. Why on earth won't you finish it? Can you give me one reason I can understand?

Mozart:
It's killing me.

Salieri:
All I wanted was to sing to God. He gave me that longing... and then made me mute. Why? Tell me that. If He didn't want me to praise him with music, why implant the desire? Like a lust in my body! And then deny me the talent?