Salieri’s brisk, vibrant comedy is a hidden masterpiece, combining the perils of courtship with the 18th century’s burgeoning taste for crackpot science. Director and designer Jeremy Gray’s commitment to the score, the work and this much-maligned composer shines out in Bampton’s engaging production, sung in exceptionally clear English by a talented cast.

You can’t produce Salieri without dealing with the Mozart question: perhaps, more properly, we should term it the Amadeus question. In his pre-performance talk, Jeremy Gray quoted these moving lines:

How comely, also, to forgive; we should,
As Mozart, were he living, surely would,
Remember kindly Salieri‘s shade,
Accused of murder and his works unplayed,

W. H. Auden, Metalogue to the Magic Flute, 1955 (article here)

Click here to read my full review on Bachtrack.

Antonio Salieri, 18 August 1750 – 7 May 1825