Antonio Salieri will always be famous as the fictionalised murderer of Peter Shaffer's Amadeus, the "patron saint of mediocrity" who plots Mozart's death in a fit of jealous rage. But in real life, Salieri was actually the more successful composer, and had a place in the court hierarchy that Mozart struggled all his life to achieve. His music never approached the brilliance of Mozart's, but as the City of London Sinfonia's concert proved, he was much more than a mere hack.
The programme re-created an evening of imperial entertainment in 1786, when Joseph II commissioned a new double bill to entertain the palace of Schönbrunn, with Salieri's miniature opera, First the Music, Then the Words, and Mozart's play with music, The Impresario. Both are tales of backstage intrigue, following the fraught process of putting on an opera, and both centre on a musical duel between prima donnas. Salieri's is the more ambitious piece, with its set of recitatives, arias and ensembles; Mozart, limited by his libretto, provides just four numbers and an overture.
Salieri's piece is a deft dramatisation of the crisis that befalls a composer and librettist as they try to put together an opera in just four days. At the Barbican, Andrew Foster-Williams's Composer battled with Leigh Melrose's Poet over the relative importance of music and words in opera, and both compromised their standards to accommodate the demands of the two divas, sung by Sarah Tynan and Joanne Lunn. Salieri composed his most effective music for Tynan's tragic heroine, parodying his own music and the conventions of opera seria. Lunn's aria was a contrived mad scene, and Salieri's long-winded music missed the wit of the situation. However, the final quartet of conciliation was a moment of inspiration, combining the contrasting music of both divas.
Even in the four brief numbers that Mozart provided for The Impresario, he dramatised the battle of the sopranos much more effectively than Salieri. Playing the youthful comedienne, Tynan was again the winner in competition with Helen Williams's mature opera seria star, outshrieking her in a riotous duet. Actor Nicholas Le Prevost played the put-upon Impresario, selling his artistic soul to the whims of his leading ladies, and finally retreating to the pastoral bliss of his farm. Hickox's unfussy conducting and the efficient playing of the City of London Sinfonia revealed the drama and detail of Mozart's ebullient score.
