SHEILA CHISHOLM
It has been said that jealousy is an ego trip, and where there is ego there is poison – and this aptly describes Italian composer Antonio Salieri’s reaction to Johann Chrysostom Amadeus Mozart’s appearance in Vienna. Until then Salieri had held sway as Austrian Emperor Joseph II’s favoured composer.
Deeply pious, Salieri believed his gifts were God given. However, when it dawned that “brash upstart Amadeus Mozart” truly had divine gifts, such blinding jealousy overtook Salieri, he set about destroying Mozart.
Did Salieri poison Mozart? No one knows. Yet when, in 1979, English playwright Peter Shaffer adapted Alexander Pushkin’s 1880 play Mozart and Salieri into a fictionalised play titled Amadeus, the world took as fact Salieri’s confession to poisoning Mozart. Miloš Forman’s film Amadeus endorsed that belief.
Groundbreaking opus
In February 2018, choreographer/dancer Marc Goldberg is mounting, for Cape Town City Ballet (CTCB), his brand new unique, two-act ballet based on the Mozart/Salieri legend. The question is: “Will he unearth the truth?” “Wait and see,” is Goldberg’s smiling reply. As an experienced international dancer and presently a CTCB soloist Goldberg knows precisely what each dancer is technically capable of producing and is pushing them hard to create this groundbreaking opus.
“Technically”, said senior principal Laura Bosenberg, who is sharing Constanze (Mozart’s wife) with Mariette Opperman and Kirstel Jensen, “Marc’s choreography is structured between classical/neoclassical/contemporary. Moves are sometimes quirky. Sometimes grotesque. Sometimes funny. It’s very demanding, as Marc’s stylised movements are pretty unique. But he listens when we suggest ways to flow one particularly tricky action into the another.”
That’s the sign of sensitivity in a choreographer. Watching Goldberg arrange a section with Claire Spector, Anthony Maloney and Tusile Tenza bore out Bosenberg’s comment. Grand battements (high kicks) have become as much a choreographer’s ploy as “cussing” is by today’s authors – used when imaginative vocabulary runs dry. So far, Goldberg’s movement material shows no signs of drying up. Instead his leg movements are crafty and athletic, requiring great skill. His port de bras also avoids the “ordinary.” Yet his step language colours the phrasing, rhythms, layers, light and shade, and follows that of the Mozart and Salieri music he’s chosen which includes the Don Giovanni Overture, Symphonies No 22 and 25 and Salieri’s Armida.
A fantasy
Adds Goldberg, “The ballet isn’t a literal translation of Shaffer’s Amadeus. It’s a fantasy. A fantasy for which computer design expert Pieter Steyn is devising animated visuals and 3-D mapping. It’s a fantasy which the combined efforts of 16 CTCB dancers, music, visuals, Johannesburg’s Denis Hutchinson’s lighting, costumes by Kathryn MacLachlan, Jenny Stretch and Mervyn Williams will create a pre-eminent, theatrical ballet experience. One kept within the spirit of its historical frame.”
Without impresario Pieter Toerien’s generous sponsorship Goldberg couldn’t stage this work – his second full-length ballet.“I’m humbled and indebted to Pieter for helping further my choreographic career.” The Mozart and Salieri world premiere is at Artscape Opera from 7 to 17 February, 2018. Booking Computicket 081 915 8000.
What: Mozart and Salieri
Where: Artscape Opera House, Cape Town
When: 7 to 17 February, 2018
Book tickets: www.computicket.co.za
WS
