Great film as originally released. But the “director’s cut” sucks.
About 25 years ago I traced my wife’s piano teachers, their teachers, their teachers’ teachers, and so on. Interestingly, I found that Mozart’s youngest child (Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart, also called Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Junior) was taught piano by Salieri. Junior was also taught by Johann Nepomuk Hummel, a student of Mozart’s who for a time lived in the Mozart home. If there indeed was a bitter, serious rivalry between Mozart and Salieri or if there were widespread rumors that Salieri murdered Mozart, I doubt if Mozart’s wife would have allowed little Wolfie to have been taught by Salieri.
Whatever the quality of the music he composed, As Court Composer in Vienna Salieri was apparently quite the prestigious teacher for aspiring musicians. Musicians he taught included Schubert, Beethoven, Liszt, Hummel, and Moscheles.
A gent I know swears that after watching the movie in a theater the first week or its release, overheard a teenager come out of the movie saying “Great music, I wonder who wrote it.”
Was it possible that salieri was actually even a little bit jealous of mozarts musical gift, of the music mozart made? What do the historians say about that?