WSO brings Amadeus to life

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This article was published 12/04/2019 (2720 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra has shown many times during its Night at the Movies series, there are plenty of film composers whose work doesn’t sound out of place on the classical concert stage.

John Williams (E.T., Harry Potter), Lennie Hayton (Singin’ in the Rain) and Herbert Stothart (The Wizard of Oz) are among the composers whose Oscar-winning scores have been performed by the WSO while audiences enjoy the films they accompany.

With its latest offering, however, the WSO is in more familiar territory, presenting the music of a towering talent, a giant of the classical world: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Of course, the Salzberg, Austria-born composer never scored a film, what with being born in 1756 and all, but his music is integral to the 1984 biopic Amadeus, about the bawdy young genius’s rivalry with Vienna court composer Antonio Salieri, based on Peter Shaffer’s stage play of the same name.

Starring Tom Hulce as the giggling young upstart Mozart and F. Murray Abraham as Salieri, the film — directed by Milos Forman, who died last year at age 86 — was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and won eight, including best picture, best actor (for Abraham) and best director. (To date, it’s the only film to have more than one nomination for actor in a lead role.)

The original soundtrack, performed by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields and directed by Sir Neville Marriner, includes Mozart’s Symphony No. 25 in G minor, his Serenade for Winds in B-flat major, selections from his operas The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni and many more. The soundtrack album won the Grammy for best classical album in 1984 and went on to become one of the bestselling classical recordings of all time.

The WSO, led by conductor Julian Pellicano, and joined by pianist David Moroz and the Prairie Voices choir, will perform live in-sync with Amadeus on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, at 2 p.m. (April 13-14). Tickets start at $25 at wso.ca/amadeus.

jill.wilson@freepress.mb.ca