Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Joseph Shore

In 1981, 1982 and 1985 The Chamber Opera Theatre of New York premiered this little masterpiece in New York. It was a success as few pieces have been a success in New York. It seemed to catch people at a time when they were ready to contemplate the personal-social issues of mediocrity verses genius and the artistic issue of the quality of acting in opera. The artistic element in New York was literally “a-buzz” with this production. Not only did it receive almost unparalleled acclaim from the New York critics, but it became national as well. Helping in this was the general public interest in Peter Schaffer’s Broadway version of the same story, “Amadeus.”  But Schaffer’s rendering of the old story is much lighter than the Pushkin original play which Rimsky-Korsakov put into his opera. In the original Russian language the play/opera is very dark indeed, more worthy of the depressive Mussorgsky whose major work, Boris Godounov, Rimsky re-orchestrated. In some ways, the skilled orchestrator, Rimsky, almost seems like “Salieri” to the more “natural,” unskilled Mozart of Mussorgsky. Was Rimsky “poisoning” his rival Mussorgsky by re-orchestrating Boris Godounov? That is a different question but it is interesting to note that the issues of Mozart and Salieri—namely, genius verses mediocrity—hit to the very heart of personal experience in the little enclave known as “the arts.”  Perhaps that “personal experience,” more than any other reason, caused the New York premiere of this opera to catch public attention.  It is interesting to note that most of the “attention” came from the artistic community itself. True enough, “Joe” public came to the opera as well. But the stir in New York came from the artistic community which seemed to intuit that its very soul was being opened and displayed to the world. Mozart and Salieri in 1981 and the following year, brought the New York artistic community “out of the closet.” Not all appreciated the experience. There was the obvious “tension” between the young acclaimed company, Chamber Opera Theatre of New York and the two established companies, The New York City Opera and The Metropolitan Opera. To set the tension into the public arena, the New York Post had the previous year said that “when opera is done this way (by the Chamber Opera Theatre of New York) it is worth any number of Met average night performances.” Other similar reviews followed. That put The Chamber Opera Theatre of New York on the New York map. Not all of the moguls in the New York arts were happy about it.

For those still unfamiliar with the story and its issues, let me summarize:  There was an old legend that Mozart had died from poisoning at the hand of his rival, Antonio Salieri. The story goes that Salieri was a mediocre composer who could not stand the genius of Mozart and was moved out of envy to murder him. The story is probably not true although it is possible. Pushkin, sensing something of a universal issue in this, wrote a short one act play about the two rival composers in which Salieri confesses and burns in his mediocrity, finally poisoning Mozart on stage. The monologues of Salieri essentially lay out for the public the issues of genius verses mediocrity. Salieri was, of course, the more powerful person politically, being the Kapellmeister to the Viennese Hapsburg Court. He represents the power of mediocrity with which all genius must cope and deal. Sound modern? Of course. That is why all New York “artsy” people were “a-buzz.”  The truly mediocre fearfully came to see themselves represented on stage and the truly gifted artists came to see themselves vindicated, or at least publicly murdered.  To make the whole picture of life imitating art complete, the singing actor portraying Salieri (yours truly) was a baritone that had received great notoriety in the press and a certain acclaim from the cognoscenti but was possessed by political problems with the ruling class of both The New York City Opera and The Metropolitan Opera. The stage director was a young, unconventionally talented iconoclast, intent on bringing a higher level of integrated artistic experience into opera! The singing actor portraying Mozart was a young, boyish, talented, and almost totally unknown and unheralded tenor named Ron Gentry. Could the table have been set with finer ware?  The issues of mediocrity verses genius were being publicly thrust into the face of the royal, artistic ruling class in New York, the modern correlative of the Viennese Hapsburg Court, and they were not too happy to be dragged out into the open air for scrutiny. They responded by “poisoning” the young Chamber Opera Theatre of New York. Not-so-mysteriously, the state funding was cut off from the young company. Is it at all interesting that the council on the arts making the decision was controlled by some of  the same moguls who were so dragged into the public eye by Mozart and Salieri?  The young company had to fold and, like the young Mozart, was buried in a paupers grave, remembered now only by the cognoscenti.

Have I made my point yet that Pushkin and Rimsky-Korsakov have played around with the soul itself? They embarked on very dangerous territory and survived it themselves only marginally. What happened to the rest of “our cast.”  Yours truly, the Salieri, experienced a similar “poisoning” in the operatic world which resulted in a truncated career. The truly talented stage director was likewise rejected by the operatic world as a whole and had a marginalized career. There is a lesson here, and it is not the didactic one that Pushkin and Rimsky have preached to us. It is this, that the insecure artistic soul will not allow public investigation into its very nature. To be sure, there are more mediocre Salieri’s in the artistic community than there are truly gifted Mozart’s. But the matter will not be helped by finger pointing.

The true lesson is to be found in a different kind of story, one perhaps best illustrated by another, more “earthy” political tale. When Lyndon Johnson assumed the Presidency it was at first thought that his many years in political life would make him a good communicator to congress. Unfortunately, he did not begin his Presidency in such a fashion. The frequent episodes of congressional stupidity drove him to despair. He would, reportedly, end many a phone conversation with a desire to see the stupid congressman in the infernal regions. One of his aides said to him one day, “Mr. President, it is not enough just to tell them to go to hell. They don’t want to go there. It’s hot down there. So until you can find a way to actually get them down there, maybe you should stop telling them to go.”  President Johnson then changed the way he dealt with “stupid” congress.

You see the lesson is that unmasking mediocrity will accomplish nothing except one’s own demise. The mediocre will not enjoy the experience of being unmasked before the world. They will not repent and confess just because they have been unmasked! What naiveté to think that publicly exposing mediocrity would rid the world of it!! 

Performing this opera in the full, realistic manner that we did at Chamber Opera Theatre of New York was far more deadly to us than pronouncing the accursed name “Macbeth” a thousand times in a theatre. For the “Macbeth” curse, there is at least the remedy of going outside, turning around three times and re-entering. For the Mozart and Salieri curse there is no remedy! 

The irony is that the artistic-philosophical issues raised by Pushkin and Rimsky can only be safely contemplated  publicly “from a distance,” as it were, by a cast and production far removed from the issues themselves.  A nice mediocre bass-baritone and similar tenor may have the ability to safely bring these issues to the public in a standard production.

There is a poem that comes to mind from distant ages that, modified, says: “Mediocrity is a creature of such frightful means, as to be hated needs only to be seen. Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, we first pity, then endure, then embrace.”  Those who have embraced her in their daily walk must be dealt with in a more effectual, if not more kindly way, than public undressing. Then there is the more universal lesson, that we are all mediocre at something! How we handle our own insecurities in those areas is as much a subject of this inquiry as anything else. Our mediocrity in those areas may be tolerable both to ourselves and to the world of our daily intercourse, if we do not puff ourselves up in denial and posturing!

All in all, Pushkin’s and Rimsky’s “little masterpiece” is indeed an operatic masterpiece, but one both “poisoned” and “poisoning” by the very issue it debates. Maybe in another hundred years we can witness it performed in a way truly fitting “genius.”    

Step by step through the opera:

Scene 1

It is close to dawn in the royal apartment of Antonio Salieri in the Viennese Hapsburg Court. He has been up all night with his scribe writing his autobiography, in the process of which he is noting all the melodies that he believes Mozart has stolen from him. Mozart’s genius, along with his frivolous manner, has deeply disturbed Salieri who now sees himself as mediocre compared to Mozart, an assessment of his life which he cannot bear. He has even contemplated suicide. On the one hand he worships Mozart’s genius, but cannot bear the thought that “God” has given such genius to a frivolous prankster like Mozart rather than to himself. He believes his hard work should have earned him “God’s” favor instead of Mozart. On the other hand, he finds Mozart’s very existence something which he cannot tolerate and begins to rationalize that Mozart must be “removed” from the world for the sake of art itself.

About daybreak, Salieri’s rantings and ravings are interrupted by Mozart himself who has come to Salieri for a dual purpose. He has been writing a Requiem and wants to get Salieri’s opinion on it. He treats Salieri as a senior colleague to be respected while knowing all the while that Salieri’s music is really not very good. Salieri accepts the appearance of respect that Mozart gives to him, while envying Mozart’s genius.

Mozart has found a street musician begging for food on the street and has brought him along to Salieri’s apartment for a joke. He brings the old man in and asks him to play for Salieri. Salieri is not amused and erupts in anger over the disgraceful show. Mozart would leave but Salieri notices Mozart has brought some music. He is driven to hear it just as he craves to have Mozart’s genius. Mozart, instead of playing his new Requiem, improvises on the spot, while the avaricious Salieri tries to take notes on the composition he is hearing. Deeply unhinged by Mozart’s ability to “compose” so brilliantly, he is even more upset to find that the “composition” has been an improvisation. He invites Mozart to dine with him that evening in Mozart’s favorite “pub,” the Golden Lion,” a common place that Salieri would never frequent. He decides that Mozart must be murdered for sake of art itself but contemplates dying with him in a form of suicide. He will take the poison with Mozart.

Scene 2

The second scene takes place in the Golden Lion. Salieri and Mozart are eating Mozart’s favorite dish, “livers sautéed with onions,” a common food that Salieri pretends to enjoy. Mozart tells him about writing his Requiem. Salieri is unhinged by this news and decides to poison Mozart right there. He pours poison into two cordial glasses, intending to die with Mozart, but the prankster Mozart downs both glasses before Salieri can take his. Despairing of his inability to even kill himself, Salieri sinks into depression. Mozart finally shows him the printed music for the first movement of his Requiem. Salieri examines it alone to ascertain Mozart’s secrets but is finally overcome with the beauty of the music and the self-awareness of his own nature from which he can no longer hide. Mozart returns to find Salieri weeping, but excuses himself soon due to “illness.” Salieri is left alone with his conscience. He tried to justify himself by the old tale that even a genius like Michelangelo was rumored to have murdered the young man who modeled for the Sistine Crucifixion in order to find the true posture of death. The absurdity of the rumor does not stop Salieri from taking refuge in it. But as he looks again at a page of Mozart’s Requiem he is overcome again with his own nature. The scene ends.

New York Times

ARTS AND LEISURE

Sunday. August 16,1981

Rimsky-Korsakov's

\

'Mozart and Salieri’

Ron Gentry, left, is Mozart and Joseph Shore is Salieri in the Rimsky -Korsakov opera to be performed
by the Chamber Opera of New York at Marymount Manhattan Theater beginning Thursday.

THE CRITICS RAVE ABOUT CHAMBER OPERA THEATRE OF NEW YORK'S PRODUCTION
OF RIMSKY-KORSAKOV'S 'MOZART AND SALIERI" WITH JOSEPH SHORE AS SALIERI.

"Chamber Opera Theatre's performance and production were thoroughly
admirable, including the staging by Thaddeus Motyka.  Both operas
(sung clearly in good English translations) were cast with splendid
singing actors, including Ron Gentry as a Mozart not far removed from
Tim Curry and Joseph Shore as a Salieri on an Ian McKellen level.
Indeed when Shore broke down while reading the opening of Mozart's
Requiem after giving his rival poison, it was a moving moment of truth
comparable to anything in AMADEUS." Bill Zakariasen, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

•Baritone Joseph Shore was superb as Salieri, his voice full and flexible,
his acting on a level rarely seen on the operatic stage."
Peter Goodman, NEWSDAY

•

•MOZART AMD SALIERI is almost a monologue for Salieri and it was handled
beautifully here, both musically and dramatically, by Joseph Shore,
the 1981 winner of the Bruce Yarnell Memorial Award for Baritones."

Glenne Currie,UNITED PRESS international

"Joseph Shore...gave a fully engrossing, richly characterful portrayal,
breaking into very convincing desolation at the climactic moment
when Mozart's Requiem wells  up from the orchestra."

Jack Heimenz, MUSICAL AMERICA

"The one-act, two role opera is Rimsky-Korsakov's setting of Pushkin's
dramatic poem in which Salieri, not Mozart, is the leading figure,
a role both commandingly and sensitively dominated at the opening
performance last night by baritone Joseph Shore."

Dave Spangler, THE BERGEN RECORD

"The dominant role is that of Salieri, with Joseph Shore giving a really
awesome portrayal of the court musician who can never fathom or hope
to gain one spark of Mozart's genius.

Jennie Schulman, BACKSTAGE

"    "Joseph Shore excels in his role of Salieri.  He is as fine an actor as he
is a singer, and both talents combine in an altogether convincing and
moving performance...one would want to attend the production as much
for the theatrical value of their performance as for any other reason."
Louis Morra, WKCR RADIO

'Joseph Shore's Salieri provided the evening’s finest singing and one
hopes to hear much more of him in the future."

Byron Belt, NEWHOUSE NEWSPAPERS

'The only voice I can single out for distinction is the sonorous
baritone of Joseph Shore."         Noah Tree, AFTER DARK

"...an uncluttered, serious and moving account of Rimsky-Korsakov's
one act MOZART AND SALIERI... Baritone Joseph Shore sang and acted a
powerfully tragic Salieri."        Leighton Kerner, THE village VOICE

"The singers in Mozart and Salieri were Ron Gentry, as the young genius, and Joseph Shore, as his jealous rival.  They fulfilled their assignments so expertly that one flinched inwardly at the implication that Salieri murdered Mozart....."

Allen Hughes, THE NEW YORK TIMES

"Mozart and Salieri was so highly acclaimed when Chamber Opera performed it last season, that they decided to bring it back with the original principals, Joseph Shore as Salieri and Ron Gentry as Mozart. Both were perfectly cast to the extent where you feel no one will ever be equal to their flawless characterizations.  Shore, in particular, possesses a dramatic baritone voice of limitless range.  In contrast, Gentry displays a clear, crisp tenor which suits ideally.  Both gentlemen conveyed convincing historical portraits of the rival Maestri/Composers."

Jennie Schulman, BACKSTAGE

".... a very satisfying work .... Good acting blended well with good singing; the characters came alive.  It was a wonderful production."
FESTA, The First Guide to the Performing Arts in the U.S.A.

".... Chamber Opera Theater of New York  ... focuses on rarely done works.  All of its productions are meticulously rehearsed and minutely detailed.  They have to be:  in this intimate setting, everything appears close up ... the strong baritone voice of Joseph Shore (Salieri) and the silvery tenor of Ron Gentry (Mozart) complemented each other nicely ,.. The success of such groups is heartening...."

Annalyn Swan, NEWSWEEK

"    Chamber Opera Theater of New York revived its hit production of  Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Mozart and Salieri at the Marymount Manhattan Theater Wednesday night ... Mozart and Salieri’s  expert production and performance (once again starring Ron Gentry and Joseph Shore in the leads) were fully up to last season's high musical and dramatic standards."

Bill Zakariasen, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

                                                                          By WAYNE LEE GAY

Special lo the Star-Telegram

DALLAS — Did Salieri kill Mozart? Probably not, but the possibility that he did has long fascinated historians, musicians and lots of other folks. A century and a half before Peter Shatter turned the persistent rumors of foul play on the part of Salieri into the hit play and motion picture Amadeus, Russian author Alexander Pushkin wrote a short play, Mozart and Salieri, dealing with the same possibility. Rimsky-Korsakov set Pushkin's play to music as an opera in 1898, and Public Opera of Dallas, cashing in on the current interest in the Mozart and Salieri legend, on Friday night opened its second season with a revival of the piece.Unlike Shaffer's Amadeus, Pushkin's play and Rimsky-Korsakov's opera portray Salieri unambiguously as Mozart's murderer. No playing around here with subtleties or the possibility that Mozart would have died anyway: Salieri gets out the poison before our very eyes and, watches a bale and hearty young
Mozart gulp it down. Though Pushkin's treatment is obvious to the point of being transparent, and contains little dramatic suspense (we all pretty

well know how it will come out in the end), it takes on a gripping intensity when joined to Rimsky-Korsakov's music.

  The score is, indeed, top-drawer Rimsky-Korsakov. It re-creates the Mozartian style in a late Romantic       context (and without overdoing it or   sacrificing one iota of Rimsky-Korsakov's mastery of orchestral and  harmonic color). And the Public Opera of Dallas, using a production originally presented by and belonging to Chamber Opera Theatre of New York, does the work justice. Under the direction of Thaddeus Motyka, Joseph  Shore presents Salieri as a sort of Everyman turned bad, capable of arousing sympathy and self-recognition from the audience. He also sings the part beautifully, which doesn't hurt. Tenor Ron Gentry as Mozart made a convincing dramatic presence, though he does not own a voice of any particular distinction. In the supporting, non-speaking roles, Leslie Rice-King made a poignant character out of the throw-away role of a blind violinist whom Mozart picks up on the street for the purpose of ridicule.What was happening in the orchestra pit was not quite on the same level with what was happening on stage, mostly because of poor string intonation. John Burrows' interpretation of the score was otherwise
first-class. He added, during the scene change. Tchaikovsky's orchestral paraphrase of Mozart's Ave verum corpus, a nice touch inevitably spoiled by the noise of the scenery being pushed into place. On the whole, though, this is a production worth the attention of both
operatic connoisseurs and operatic newcomers.

Public Opera of Dallas