My newest Sally Solari mystery, A
Measure of Murder, has Sally joining a local chorus, even though
she’s crazy busy working at both her restaurants, Solari’s and
Gauguin, and doesn’t really have time for all the rehearsals and
practicing on her own she’ll need to do. But the group is singing
her favorite piece of music—the Mozart Requiem—which
Sally’s been obsessed with since high school, when she fell in love
with the movie, Amadeus. So
she decides she’ll just have to make the time.
Sally isn’t alone in her love. That
film (adapted from the play of the
same name by Peter Shaffer) has special meaning for me, as
well. When it was released in 1984, I was just becoming interested in
opera. My friend Valerie (with whom I had played in the Cabrillo
College orchestra—me on clarinet, she on violin) used to get
together to drink wine and listen to operas together, and when
Amadeus came out, we went together to see it. Both of us were
much taken with the movie, and started listened to more Mozart
afterwards, including Don Giovanni and his Requiem in D
minor.
I met my now-wife, Robin, the following
year, and the first evening we spent together I apparently raved to
her about Amadeus. She went home and searched the whole Bay
Area for a theater screening the film—no simple task in that
pre-internet era—and finally found one in San Francisco. She then
called to ask me on a date to go up to the City to see the movie, but
alas, I was out of town for the weekend and didn’t get her message
until after it had left the theater. But wasn’t that romantic of
her?
Years later, while writing the
manuscript that would become A Measure of Murder, I watched
the film again, this time on DVD. And as I watched, I pondered—as I
had many times before—the title of the movie. Although Amadeus was
Mozart’s middle name,* no one refers to him that way; it’s always
either “Mozart” or “Wolfgang.”
But then again, neither of those two
names has the ring of the name Amadeus—which rolls off the tongue
in a lovely way—so I’ve always figured that was the reason for
the film’s title.
But lying in bed after watching the
movie again that night, I started thinking about the Salieri
character—how he had dedicated his life to the love of God and
wanted nothing more than the ability to compose beautiful music for
His glorification. But Salieri becomes possessed with fury that his
God has endowed the “obscene” boor Mozart with such musical
genius, making Salieri—a devout Catholic—seem a mediocre composer
in comparison. Salieri therefore rejects God, and decides to dedicate
the rest of his life to destroying this “creature” whom God has
chosen over him. (Yes, yes, this story line has nothing to do with
the real life Salieri, but it’s good fun for a fictional
retelling!)
And then I thought again about the
title of the film, and it hit me—like one of those light bulbs in a
cartoon.
light bulbs of Thomas
Edison
at the Huntington Library,
Pasadena
Amadeus. Ama Deus. That’s Latin for
“love of God.” Duh! How could I have never thought of it
before—it seemed so obvious now.
Because that is, of course, the irony
in the film: It’s Salieri who has dedicated his life to the
love of God. He is truly the “ama-deus” of the story. But it’s
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart whom God has chosen as His vehicle for
composing glorious music.
Very clever Mr. Shaffer.
*(Mozart’s given middle name was
actually Theophilus, but he preferred the Latin translation of this
Greek name and so used it, instead. My grandfather was named
Theophilus Parvin Cook and didn’t go by that name either, so I
guess my family has something in common with the brilliant composer.)
