What is it about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart that makes people think, "His life needs to be turned into an embarrassingly bad musical"? First Mozart! das Musical, now this... thing.
Mozart L'Opera Rock (French for Mozart the Rock Opera) is a 2009 musical very loosely based on the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. While Mozart! das Musical focused on his clashes with Colloredo, this one focuses instead on his life in general and his (fictional) rivalry with Antonio Salieri.
I didn't recognise any of the cast, so let's move on to what I thought while I was watching the show.
The opening scene looks like something out of a horror movie. Red costumes, red lights, red background, incredibly ominous Latin(?) chanting... is this musical inspired by Mozart or Dante's Inferno?
Some of the extras' costumes look relatively accurate. (From a distance. In poor lighting. As long as you don't look too hard.) All the other costumes give Mozart! das Musical a run for its money. Seriously? Eighteenth-century clothes and hairstyles could be incredibly beautiful and elaborate. (Of course they could also be incredibly tacky; there have been fashion victims in every era.) Historically accurate costumes would not only be more logical; from an aesthetic standpoint I'd vastly prefer them to those modern eyesores.
For that matter, the real Mozart's life was dramatic enough without adding completely fictional rivalries. The real Colloredo did nothing to deserve his portrayal in MdM. The real Salieri did even less to deserve his portrayal here.
The way the camera zooms around in front of the stage is better suited to filming a concert than a musical. It's very distracting. Speaking of the filming, why the sudden cuts to the, er, musicians playing off-stage? (I hesitate to call them an orchestra; they appear to be a few drums, an electric guitar, and not much else. Less an orchestra, more a rock band who somehow ended up playing at the same time as a musical.)
Leopold Mozart sounds like he has a sore throat. The whole time he was "singing" my only thought was, "Someone give that man a throat lozenge!"
Just because it's a musical doesn't mean there has to be a song in every other scene. That tavern song is one of the most pointless musical numbers I've ever seen.
One minute the story is an underwhelming pseudo-historical "biography", the next it takes a bizarre detour into science fiction. I rolled my eyes so hard it's a miracle they didn't fall out. "Bim bam bim boum" is unexpectedly terrifying. Aloysia's alternatively blank and deranged expressions, the demented ballet sequence, the (lack of) lighting... I have to wonder if it was originally written for some sci-fi/horror musical.
The brief excerpts of historically-accurate music and opera only make the rest of the show much more jarring. It should be either entirely modern or entirely historical, not some Frankenstein-esque combination!
Some of the costumes are so crazy there's only one proper response: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. This snail hat and pink hair, for instance.
Is it a snail's shell? Is it an ice cream cone? No, it's something dreamed up by a misguided milliner.
Even by musical standards the relationship between Constanze and Wolfgang is absurdly abrupt. She sees him once, when he's infatuated with her sister and barely even notices her, and immediately falls in love with him 🙄
The choreography is a mess. Half the time it's nothing but the actors and actresses wandering around the stage and waving their arms.
What the hell is that clown doing dancing around the stage? Did the director think he was adapting It? On the same note, why is Anna Maria Mozart's death witnessed by people in plague doctor and Venice carnival masks? Make it make sense, someone. Please.
Act 1 ends with another crazy ballet sequence. Will things be any saner in act 2? Hell no. The clown reappears within minutes. It's all downhill from there.
The only historically accurate part of the entire musical is the Webers running a boarding house. Honestly I'm amazed they bothered. The rest of the show bears as much resemblance to history as a dilapidated cottage does to Buckingham Palace.
Leopold Mozart's funeral would be sad if it wasn't for the dancers with horned headdresses(?) leaping around behind Nannerl. Similarly, the mysterious man who tells Wolfgang to write a requiem would be much more sinister without that ridiculous mask and weird voice.
The part where the actors run through the audience in "Victime de ma victoire" is so chaotic and poorly-lit it's impossible to actually see them. And Wolfgang's death is a chaotic mess of flashing lights and people running around.
I can't believe I'm saying this, but I actually prefer Mozart! das Musical to this show. Partly it's because of the languages. I know I'm in the minority, but to me French looks and sounds incredibly ugly. On the other hand German looks intimidating yet sounds much more pleasant. And on a more practical note, I know more German than French. But to get back to the musicals, the other reason I prefer MDM is the music itself. That version actually sounds like a musical. This one sounds like a rock concert with a threadbare plot strung between the songs.
Is it available online?: Yes, on YouTube with English subtitles, in case you feel like being hopelessly confused for two hours.
Rating: 1/10.
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