How does Shaffer draw upon aspects of the play's historical background to enhance its dramatic interest?

Mozart is said to be set in the ‘Romantic’ period. This culture is predominately focussed on the idea of free speech. There is also an element of spontaneity. This is shown by Mozart in the library scene where he says “marry me”. Another important Romantic impulse is the notion of carpe diem. This means to live for the moment, and not plan for the future. We encounter this when we see Salieri making a promise with God and arranging his prospects. Mozart on the other hand neglects order and structure and has a child when he clearly doesn’t have the mental capacity and ironically the finance to do so.

Since the Age of Reason believes that commitment to decorum helped preserve society’s important moral standards, the Establishment are very anti-Mozart. This new revolution stands for everything that their culture is against. With this in mind it creates the ideology of new versus old. Society is apprehensive to accept a new phenomenon to break their convention because no one likes to chance change. This theme is faultlessly expressed in Amadeus.

Paradoxically it is the lower class citizens who are the ones who understand Mozart’s music. This could be showing that perhaps there is more to a genius that meets the eye. Maybe that genius is in the eye of the beholder and that your status holds no predisposition on whether you can truly encompass the complexity of something as vast as Mozart’s music. Despite the conflict between the historical dichotomies fused into this era, there is a message that they both needed each other. Salieri needed Mozart so he could begin to understand reality and how life isn’t fair when Mozart needed Salieri in order to get money for his music.

“All serious operas written in this century are boring”. This shows Mozart clearly expressing himself however he wants. The provocative nature of it shows how he speaks what he thinks and goes against the conformist way of agreeing politely. For example, Joseph says, “Have I told you this before?” and the Establishment all reply “No your majesty” when in fact he has. Due to the lying attitude of the court and largely Salieri it creates the impression of him metaphorically wearing a mask as a way of covering up the truth. As Mozart is such an outcast in this false society it makes the death of him seem inevitable; yet we feel sorry for him as it is largely societies fault for not excepting him.

After this speech we see Salieri and Orsini-Rosenberg somewhat ganging up on Mozart. This fits in with the idea of the people within the Age of Reason act together as part of a community. However this is a very malicious way of fighting Mozart. Ironically they are a society revolved around the idea of fairness, yet they are being rude enough to talk in Italian when in the presence of Von Strack who cannot understand it. “Orsini-Rosenberg tears out some pages of Mozart’s manuscripts”. This shows that both historical backgrounds don’t understand what is right and what is wrong. Mozart doesn’t understand how to get by in society, this is because he is ahead of his time, where Salieri doesn’t understand moral limitations and takes his jealousy too far. Shaffer scrutinises both ways of life and is perhaps showing that because life isn’t fair we are never going to have a perfect society. Killing Mozart didn’t make Salieri better at music