Theatre Review: Amadeus

 The Production: Amadeus by Peter Shaeffer

The Venue: The Concert Hall at the Sydney Opera House

Stars: 5

Until: 21 January

The Sydney Opera House turns 50 this year, so the powers-that-be that have brought out the big guns. And big guns they were. 

Michael Sheen. 

Michael Sheen. Ageing Welsh mega-lovey to the cynical. Or one of the greatest stage actors of our time. Take your pick. He also comes across as a lovely man. (And yes, I am very biased as I have a huge thing for scruffy Welshmen. It's all in the accent and the can't-be-fucked mentality - and I'm partly of Welsh extraction)

I've loved him as an actor for years. He was the superb Miles in Bright Young Things. His Tony Blair in The Queen and David Frost in Frost/Nixon were great. He's also not afraid to go popular, acting in movies like the Twilight and Underworld Sagas. On television, he was William Masters in The Masters of Sex, and can be seen in Good Omens and Staged at the moment online. 

And he's the bloke you get to egg on your football team if you're Welsh. Watch this. It gets you on a cellular level if you haven't seen it yet.

As soon as I saw the advertisements for this production I secured a ticket, booked a flight and a hotel and hoped the wait was worth it.

It was. 

The other thing that was special for me was it was my first time seeing a production in the Concert Hall at the Sydney Opera House. Fortified with a meal from a favourite Mexican restaurant (Mejico - and this time I wasn't with somebody who thought that cumin was going to kill him (wuss)), we made our way in the rain to the big building that sort of looks like a pack of nuns in a scrum. 

50 years on, the building is still impressive. I remember seeing it as a child and thinking it unfinished. My tastes have refined a lot. It's glorious.

So, Amadeus. The story of Antonio Salieri, composer and Mozart's "mentor" in Vienna. Salieri is dying. He wants to unburden himself in his dying hours, and with this he relates the tale of how he helped facilitate the death of one of the world's greatest composers.

In the two hours 20 of the play, we watch as Salieri quietly gaslights the exuberant Mozart.

It's inspiring on many levels. Cunning, devious and playing a deceptively long game. Which, 32 years later, Salieri sees the error of his ways. 

The cast are fabulous. Rahel Romahn brings live and colour to the impish Mozart. Lily Balanticz is fabulous as Constanz, Mozart's long-suffering wife. The rest of the cast do a great job in propelling the play forward. 

There is also a full complement of opera singers and a small chamber orchestra who present Mozart's greatest hits (The Marriage of Figaro, The Magic Flute and the Requiem) as they are conceived. It's most wonderful.

The staging is great too, making use of the long stage. Up front, there is a pianoforte and a wheelchair. A set of stairs leads to the back of the theatre where the orchestra and singers perform. It's quite ingenious in its stripped back nature. Adding to this the over-the-top costumes provide a visual feast, with a baroque meets Commedia de L'Arte feel. Lots of colour and frills and ruffles.

However, this is Michael Sheen's production. He commands the stage. Being honest, I'd be happy to listen to him read a EULA (End User License Agreement). He has one of those voices which makes you feel like you've been covered in cinnamon sugar and maple syrup. It's those mellifluous tones that get you in. His stagecraft is masterful. Even when the action is away from him, I was quite mesmerised just watching him sit in a chair.

He's an actor in his prime - and a testament to Classical English Theatre training.

The standing ovation was well deserved.

My only feeling if reticence was not having slightly better tickets. We were in the centre of the Dress Circle. In traditional theatres this would be a fantastic spot, but the Concert Hall is huge and there were nuances missed though the tyranny of distance. I'm not sure what the people in the nosebleed section behind us could see of the stage. It's a matter of balancing out the size of the spectacle with size of the theatre. To put this in a smaller theatre would have meant missing out on the orchestra and choir. There are no real regrets here, but being used to smaller theatres in Melbourne, the distance from the stage did prove a little problematic. 

But I'm not complaining. I saw a brilliant production in the Opera House. I got to see a favourite actor, in his prime, in a fantastic production. I got to help celebrate the Sydney Opera House's 50th birthday. I'm also truly grateful I have the resources to make these occasional pilgrimages in the name of the Arts. 

What more can you ask for?

Today's song: