21st January a concert of “ Music for us” series for the first time came out in a form of music battle. The duel “Mozart vs Salieri” presenting works of two classics on par with each other was held the day before Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s birthday and the first opera premiere of 2018 – Rimsky-Korsakov’s one-act opera "Mozart and Salieri”. Battles of this kind were common for the times of Mozart and Salieri in Europe.
The concert was featured with NOVAT chamber orchestra under Natalya Zhuk, the children’s choir under the choral coach Margarita Mezentseva, soloists of the opera company Olga Kolobova, Guriy Guriev, Anna Dattay, Vladimir Kuchin, and Sophia Bachaeva.
The unconventional concert-battle was hosted by the director of “Mozart vs Salieri”, the Chief Stage Director of the Novosibirsk opera, History of Arts Ph. D. Vyacheslav Starodubtsev: “In Russian cultural space the unproved rumor of Salieri poisoning Mozart happened to drown out the historical truth. We wanted to restore justice and let the audience decide whether Antonio Salieri really had a reason for jealousy. I also highlighted certain excerpts of my production to redeem Antonio Salieri’s good name”.
Back in the day Antonio Salieri was one of the most successful opera composers in Europe and an outstanding music tutor. He taught Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Liszt, Franz Schubert, Carl Czerny, Luigi Cherubini, and even Mozart’s younger son Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart. The fact that Salieri taught a lot of his students for free, Schubert for example – tells a lot about his personality. First time he was accused of poisoning Mozart while he was still alive, and he took it hard. The two composers were not close friends, but they communicated a lot; Salieri once conducted Mozart’s music pieces, they even had a composition written in cooperation.
The myth of Salieri the poisoner was created mostly due to political and nationalist causes. The European musical community of XVIII – XIX centuries was filled with certain competition between German and Italian musical tradition. Mozart represented Austrian-German school and Salieri was considered the most recognized composer of Italian branch.
The dire image of Salieri the jealous craftsman was designed in the beginning of the XIX century by a genius Russian poet A. S. Pushkin and it outshined completely the other Antonio Salieri, a successful, talented musician and an outstanding music tutor, as seen by his contemporaries and students. This grim legend took its place in modern culture with the help of Peter Shaffer and his play Amadeus followed by a film of the same name directed by Miloš Forman.
21st January the audience of “Mozart vs Salieri” was presented with two unidentified pieces of music to decide which one is the best. The majority voted for the second piece, creted by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. However, during a similar contest held in Vienne on 6th February 1786 at the imperial palace conservatory, an opera by Salieri “Prima la musica e poi le parole” (First the music and then the words) was greeted with a storm of applause, while Mozart’s work Der Schauspieldirektor (The Impresario) had been a failure.
“The concept of the event is very interesting and unusual; we were happy to participate in a performance of this kind. We try to see the shows in all towns and countries we visit, and we are happy to find a performance of European level in Novosibirsk, our hometown – Mikhail and Olga, members of the audience, shared their impressions after the performance – speaking of today’s music battle, we chose Mozart’s music at one – we found the second piece more colorful emotionally and closer to our perception. Perhaps, it’s because Mozart was in advance of his time”.