Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition resulted in more than 800 works of virtually every genre of his time. Many of these compositions are acknowledged as pinnacles of the symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral repertoire. Mozart is widely regarded as among the greatest composers in the history of Western music, with his music admired for its "melodic beauty, its formal elegance and its richness of harmony and texture".
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Its subject is a centuries-old Spanish legend about a libertine as told by playwright Tirso de Molina in his 1630 play El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra. It is a dramma giocoso blending comedy, melodrama and supernatural elements. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the National Theater, now called the Estates Theatre, on 29 October 1787. Don Giovanni is regarded as one of the greatest operas of all time and has proved a fruitful subject for commentary in its own right; critic Fiona Maddocks has described it as one of Mozart's "trio of masterpieces with librettos by Da Ponte".
Jan Tomáš "Miloš" Forman was a Czech and American film director, screenwriter, actor, and professor who rose to fame in his native Czechoslovakia before emigrating to the United States in 1968.
Dervla Kirwan is an Irish television, stage, and film actress who specializes in drama roles. She gained attention for her roles in Ballykissangel, Goodnight Sweetheart, and the Doctor Who Christmas special episode The Next Doctor.
Amadeus is a 1984 American period biographical drama film directed by Miloš Forman and adapted by Peter Shaffer from his 1979 stage play Amadeus. Set in Vienna, Austria, during the latter half of the 18th century, the film is a fictionalized story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart from the time he left Salzburg, described by its writer as a "fantasia on the theme of Mozart and Salieri". Mozart's music is heard extensively in the soundtrack. The film follows a fictional rivalry between Mozart and Italian composer Antonio Salieri at the court of Emperor Joseph II. The film stars F. Murray Abraham as Salieri and Tom Hulce as Mozart. Abraham and Hulce were both nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, with Abraham winning.
Elisabeth Grümmer was a German soprano. She has been described as "a singer blessed with elegant musicality, warm-hearted sincerity, and a voice of exceptional beauty".
Celetná is a street in the Old Town, Prague, connecting the Old Town Square with the Powder Gate. It is one of the oldest streets in Prague and is part of the Royal Route. The street is approximately 400 meters long and trams once ran on it, today most of the street has the status of a pedestrian zone.
Pavel Štěpán was a Czech pianist whose domain was the interpretation of piano works by Josef Suk, Vitezslav Novak and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's piano concertos. He has always been described as a man of unusual intelligence, great pianistic style and deep musicality.
Samantha Jane Barks is a Manx actress and singer who rose to fame after placing third in the BBC talent show-themed television series I'd Do Anything in 2008. She has released three studio albums: Looking in Your Eyes (2007), Samantha Barks (2016), and Into the Unknown (2021), and made her film debut as Éponine in the Tom Hooper-directed Les Misérables in 2012. Her performance in the film won her the Empire Award for Best Female Newcomer and a shared National Board of Review Award with the film's cast.
The composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) led a life that was dramatic in many respects, including his career as a child prodigy, his struggles to achieve personal independence and establish a career, his brushes with financial disaster, and his death in the course of attempting to complete his Requiem. Authors of fictional works have found his life a compelling source of raw material. Such works have included novels, plays, operas, and films.
Aneurin Barnard is a Welsh actor and musician. He is known for playing Davey in Hunky Dory, Claude in The Truth About Emanuel, Bobby Willis in Cilla, Tim in Thirteen, King Richard III in The White Queen, William in Dead in a Week, Gibson in Dunkirk, and Boris Pavlikovsky in The Goldfinch.
Daniel Evan Freeman is an American musicologist who specializes in European art music of the eighteenth century, in particular the musical culture of eighteenth-century Prague and the Bohemian lands. He is also active as a pianist and music editor.
A Poet in New York is a British drama television film that was first broadcast, in a 60-minute version, by BBC One Wales on 30 April 2014. A longer 75-minute version was later broadcast by BBC Two on 18 May 2014. The film, written by Andrew Davies and directed by Aisling Walsh, explores how Welsh poet Dylan Thomas died in New York at the age of 39. The film was made to mark the centenary of Thomas' birth on 27 October 1914.
Morfydd Clark is a Welsh actress. She is known for her film roles as Maud in Saint Maud and Dora Spenlow in The Personal History of David Copperfield, and in television as Mina Harker in Dracula, Sister Clara in His Dark Materials, and Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
The Personal History of David Copperfield is a 2019 comedy-drama film written and directed by Armando Iannucci, based on the 1850 novel David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. It stars Dev Patel as the title character, along with Aneurin Barnard, Peter Capaldi, Morfydd Clark, Daisy May Cooper, Rosalind Eleazar, Hugh Laurie, Tilda Swinton, Ben Whishaw and Paul Whitehouse.
John Stephenson, is a British director and a former vice-president and creative supervisor for Jim Henson's Creature Shop. He was nominated for a BAFTA film award in 1985 for Dreamchild and in 1991, he won an Academy Award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Il Boemo is a 2022 feature film about the life and career of the Czech composer Josef Mysliveček (1737-1781), directed by Petr Václav. Mysliveček was one of the most acclaimed and prolific composers of opera seria in Italy in the second half of the eighteenth century, and mentor and friend to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The film stars Vojtěch Dyk, Elena Radonicich, Barbara Ronchi, and Lana Vlady. The music for the film has been recorded by the Czech ensemble Collegium 1704 led by Václav Luks, featuring international soloists such as Philippe Jaroussky, Emöke Baráth, Raffaella Milanesi, and Simona Šaturová. It was selected as the Czech entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards. It premiered at 70th San Sebastián International Film Festival on September 19, 2022.
"Das Traumbild", K. 530, is a song, or Lied, for piano and voice by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a poem by Ludwig Hölty.
The Appearance and character of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart are the subject of multiple investigations at present. The fact that it has not been possible to exhume Mozart's remains — due to the exact location of the community grave in which he was buried is unknown — nor are masks or mortuary casts preserved, lends a degree of uncertainty to the composer's physical appearance. Although an alleged skull of Mozart exists, its authenticity, more than questionable, has not been verified to date. This skull has been subjected to various DNA tests, comparing it with those of his alleged niece and maternal grandmother, but not only did they find that the former's DNA did not match those of his two relatives, but also that theirs did not match each other either. Also, an alleged lock of his hair of dubious legitimacy has been preserved. However, there are reliable sources and references concerning both his appearance and clothing as well as his personality. This information is found in artworks, descriptions, and testimonies of the time, which allow us to get a more or less accurate idea of what Mozart was like physically and psychologically.
