ADJOA_ANDOH CHRIS_ADDISON COMM DAME_JANE_GLOVER DAME_SHEILA_HANCOCK EDWARD_GARDNER_OBE GOLDA_SCHULTZ JAMES_HAWES LUCY_CROWE_OBE RICHARD_E_GRANT SIR_DAVID_McVICAR STEPHEN_FRY RICHARD E GRANT Even when Mozart knew that he was so ill, and dying, his need to express himself is so perfect and poignant. GOLDA SCHULTZ That’s the last flash of light before the candle goes out. It is gorgeous. It is painful. It is wondrous. And that’s genius. COMM This is the story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. A child prodigy. A flawed human. And a composer the like of which the world has never seen. STEPHEN FRY Mozart has some magical touch. He is above and beyond normal mortals. DR. FLORA WILSON I mean, where would we be without Mozart? He is classical music. COMM Now, with the help of experts, Mozart lovers, and world class musicians … GOLDA SCHULTZ Take one. COMM … using his private letters and original manuscripts, it's possible to piece together who he really was … A man who battled society. ADJOA ANDOH Your world is not this, your world is this. That’s it. COMM Battled his family. STEPHEN FRY You hear his rage against the world. ‘You must go this way’, ‘No! I won't’, ‘Yes, you will’. ‘No, I won't’. COMM And, ultimately, battled himself. CHRIS ADDISON He is complicated, Mozart, and slightly crazy. It's a grand history of child stars who go off the rails. COMM A genius, who channelled all this to chart the human condition. GOLDA SCHULTZ ‘I'm going to be an artist, regardless of how it is received. I'm still going to create art’. That’s bad-ass mic drop moment right there. LUCY CROWE OBE Mozart’s music makes us question why we're put on this earth. What is it all about? It makes us question our existence, I think. SIR DAVID McVICAR It, it really is mind-blowing just how far above that bar Mozart is. COMM Mozart’s path to success was far from straightforward. Even though he's been seen as a child prodigy, by the age of 21, he can only find work for a provincial archbishop, Hieronymus von Colloredo. CHRIS ADDISON Colloredo doesn’t really care about music. He's quite a pompous fellow and he and Mozart do not get on, they rub each other up absolutely the wrong way. COMM Mozart believes he should be writing major symphonies and operas. ADJOA ANDOH Mozart is desperate to break free. There's this need, like an addictive need, to be creative, to compose, to write. COMM But Colloredo has Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart playing background muzak during his meals. ADJOA ANDOH ‘You know, my dear father, I'm only in Salzburg out of consideration for you. For by God, if it was up to me, I would've wiped my arse with this appointment.’ COMM The problem is, Mozart doesn’t just think he's a genius, he knows he is. COMM It started when he was just a child. Mozart’s parents live in a small apartment. His father, Leopold, is a violinist and composer. DR. ROBERT GREENBERG The Mozart family house is modest. Leopold works for the court, he doesn’t make a whole heck of a lot of money, but Leopold himself was terrifically ambitious. COMM Leopold believes his daughter, Nannerl, is a musical prodigy: she can effortlessly learn new tunes. So he gives her a book of his own compositions to play. Five-year-old Wolfgang joins in. DAME JANE GLOVER As it happens, Mozart is not just working his way through Nannerl’s little book of pieces, but suddenly, err Leopold discovers that Wolfgang has been writing his own. He just watched this extraordinary small child produce it by himself. And it's absolutely remarkable. He's composing, effortlessly. He just is a natural. For Wolfgang, I think, this was like a sort of childhood game, but for Leopold, this was a bit of a ticket to an outside world. COMM The Mozarts travel nearly 200 miles to Vienna. Leopold arranges an audience with Empress Maria Theresa, one of Europe’s richest and most powerful leaders. He wants to show the Empress what his son can do. JAMES HAWES Leopold gets this all-valuable introduction to the royal family. They're entering a whole new world. A world of status and money, which Leopold certainly wants to be part of. COMM If Wolfgang can make a good impression at the palace, it could change the family’s fortunes. ADJOA ANDOH The Empress, she is divine, she is of God, she is enormously powerful. STEPHEN FRY I picture Wolfgang with Leopold constantly saying, ‘Sit still. Don’t fidget. When you get to the palace, the first thing you do, Wolfgang, is you bow. Remember the bow?’ ‘Yes daddy. Yes daddy’. And then comes this extraordinary moment. ADJOA ANDOH Ah! No! God, what are you – oh! DR. ROBERT GREENBERG He gives he a big old smack on the cheek. But then this tiny, little kid sits down and just starts to play. Mozart’s talent was blinding. Unworldly. For Empress Maria Theresa, the entire experience is a revelation. And she loved that little Mozart. ADJOA ANDOH I think it would've been so extraordinary for her, to see a fabulous genius bottled in a tiny, small, charming boy. Here he is at the centre of everything. COMM Mozart’s faux pas is quickly forgotten. His father, Leopold, leaves Vienna with the gift of 450 florins, more than his annual salary. STEPHEN FRY You get this sense that Leopold has really heard the cash register chinging. Wolfgang is the goose that lays the golden eggs for the family. DR. FLORA WILSON Leopold is really obsessed with money. And that’s not surprising, money matters. If you don’t have any money and you're also not an aristocrat, then you're nobody. COMM Encouraged by Wolfgang’s success, Leopold plans an ambitious European tour. The whole family will leave Salzburg behind them to promote the child miracle. JAMES HAWES What Leopold’s doing, when planning a great tour, is something which was really daring because really only rich people travelled. Travel is expensive, it can be dangerous. In a way, Leopold’s realised something which every modern musician has to know which is that the only way to make real money is to tour. DR. ROBERT GREENBERG And it's not just a matter of money. He recognises in his children’s talent a possibility of climbing a social ladder and of showing the world something he could never have done on his own. COMM For the child Mozart, it means a tour of 88 European cities. And in each one, he has to be the star of the show. ADJOA ANDOH Imagine the pressure on him, the exhaustion, the travelling, the travelling, the travelling and then performing. But Mozart doesn’t complain because he longs to have his father’s love and approval. He has no world, apart from that created by his father, guided by his father. COMM In 1764, Mozart comes to London. The family take rooms above a barber’s shop in Westminster - in the heart of theatre land. And it's in London that for the first time, Mozart has access to a small orchestra. DAME JANE GLOVER Wolfgang thinks, ‘Hm, maybe I should write a symphony now, rather than just keyboard pieces for me and my sister’. DR. ROBERT GREENBERG And Leopold knows darn well that nothing’s gonna put butts on seats more quickly than a symphony by an eight-year-old. [ DAME JANE GLOVER Now I tell you, I've performed this symphony a lot, and it's amazing. I mean, it's in three movements, it's written for strings and horns and oboes. And the structure is perfect. What I love about this is the energy of the beginning, the forthright opening, and he's moving with such confidence. But, for heaven’s sake, he's eight years old. DR. ROBERT GREENBERG Mozart is the ultimate child prodigy. And has displayed an inexplicable ability that goes way beyond his age, and apparently beyond his own personal experience. The family is in demand everywhere. COMM Mozart’s first symphony seems too good to be true. Rumours start flying around London, some suggest the boy is really a grown man, with a condition that makes him look like a child. Others say that his dad wrote the whole thing. EDWARD GARDNER OBE London society’s pretty cynical about what this talent is. They think the child is a fake, they think the dad’s a conman, so they put Mozart through a series of tests. COMM The Royal Society is brought in. Their Vice President is given the task of judging – is Mozart a natural born genius? DR. ROBERT GREENBERG There was no way for him to prepare what they were gonna ask him to do. There's no way he would've known what they were gonna ask him to do. Mozart is asked to sight read, and he does. He's asked to improvise, at one point, ‘Can you play if there's a blanket over the keyboard?’ And young Mozart says, ‘Well of course I can’. He is doing things on a keyboard that seemed physically impossible. And their jaws drop. By the way, halfway through the test, he sees the family cat, and he's so distracted, he jumps down and starts playing with the cat. It took them forever to get him back to the keyboard. It's a wonderful reflection of the fact that we're still dealing with a child. COMM After careful deliberation, the Royal Society come to a conclusion. The child is a genius. DR. ROBERT GREENBERG Mozart is a miracle of nature. And Leopold believes he knows just how to deal with that miracle. COMM The boy wonder is performing almost every day. And Leopold, as manager and promoter, rakes in the profits. But after over a year in the capital, the Mozarts must find a new audience. RICHARD E GRANT Leopold first had his children performing for the crème de la crème of the aristocracy, but then familiarity has bred a kind of disinterest. Leopold ends up having him perform in pubs, just to try and flog the act as much as he possibly could. JAMES HAWES Mozart sees his father hustling, basically, trying to make money, and Leopold is forced in to more and more desperate measures, eventually setting them up as a kind of party piece. You can go down to the Swan and Hoop and see them playing every lunchtime for half a crown. DR. ROBERT GREENBERG They're working constantly. Performing constantly. Leopold is, at this point, completely wrapped up in the notion that Wolfgang is his to use any way he wants. COMM Mozart is now back in his hometown, Salzburg. But even as an adult he is still under his father’s thumb. And he fears his days of adventure and stardom are far behind him. STEPHEN FRY Mozart the young man has lived two lives really, he's had this extraordinary time as a child where he was celebrated and spoiled and petted, and now he's discovered, as he gets older, that the cub and the puppy can be admired. But then the working dog has to do what he's told. CHRIS ADDISON Mozart understands that you can only be a prodigy when you're a kid. Eventually, you stop being a prodigy and you're just another adult who can play really well, and then you're stuck. ADJOA ANDOH How do you cope with that? I think that’s hard, and I think err Mozart would've certainly struggled with that. The sense of loss, the loss of that reflected gaze um must've been painful, and confusing for him. CHRIS ADDISON ‘Now for our saga with Salzburg, you know how odious Salzburg is in my eyes, I have more hope of being able to live in happiness and contentment anywhere else. Let it suffice to you to you that Salzburg is no place for my talent.’ COMM Mozart believes he has a special gift that transcends the normal rules and hierarchy. A gift that’s wasted on his boss. JAMES HAWES As far as the archbishop was concerned, Mozart is in his employ, and that meant he was just as much a servant as his cooks and his valet. COMM Mozart cannot accept his lot. So he approaches Archbishop Colloredo seeking permission to leave. DR. ROBERT GREENBERG Hieronymus von Colloredo has no patience for Mozart. Colloredo says, ‘No. You're an employee, I'm paying you money. You're under contract. What, you think you're gonna go gallivanting around Europe again?’ Well, young Mozart hates the archbishop because the archbishop treats him like the servant that he is. COMM Colloredo does eventually change his mind. But on one condition. The Mozarts must take unpaid leave. For Leopold, losing his income is too much and he decides to stay behind. So, Mozart hits the road again. This time with just his mother as chaperone. DR. FLORA WILSON He's travelled so often but he's never been in that carriage without his father by his side. He's been tethered to his childhood for so long, but, this time it's him, it's his rules. He gets to do it his way. CHRIS ADDISON There's an awful lot at stake in him leaving Salzburg. And if he's going to leave, then there's only one place to go, and that is the greatest musical court in Europe, Mannheim. DR. FLORA WILSON Mannheim’s orchestra is the best, most rigorously trained there is. This was a band that could play ferociously together, and if you had any orchestra at all you could write for, it's these guys. DR. ROBERT GREENBERG Mozart couldn’t believe what he was witnessing. The Mannheim Court Orchestra has clarinets, which is a brand-new instrument that Mozart has hardly ever heard before. He writes back to his father, ‘They have clarinets, I wish we had clarinets in Salzburg’. COMM The only people who get to command this orchestra are the Kapellmeisters. DR. FLORA WILSON He wants to be one of the Kapellmeisters, one of the musical leaders in Mannheim. He feels that the family’s financial future rests on his shoulders. But he's got all the confidence of a guy in his early 20s, and he's convinced it's basically a done deal. COMM The person who chooses the Kapellmeisters is the aristocratic ruler of Mannheim, the Elector. And Mozart sees he's in the house tonight. DR. FLORA WILSON It's the end of the concert. Mozart tries to get the Elector’s attention. But it's so noisy that Mozart's not sure whether the Elector has actually heard anything he said. He's just desperate to get his teeth into something really big, a new musical adventure. ADJOA ANDOH ‘I am a composer and was born to be a Kapellmeister. I neither can, nor ought, to bury the talent for composition which God, in his goodness, has so richly endowed me. I may so, without conceit, for I feel it now more than ever.’ COMM But the Elector decides there’s no place for Mozart in his orchestra. DR. FLORA WILSON It's his first big failure, and he can't quite see why. DR. ROBERT GREENBERG He's heartbroken. Heartbroken. Why doesn’t he get the job? He's 21 years old. He's never conducted an orchestra, he's never led an opera house. There's no reason to expect Mozart to get the job. Mozart wasn't Mozart yet. COMM Mozart takes his rejection hard. But with nowhere else to go, he decides to stay in Mannheim and prove his doubters wrong. ADJOA ANDOH ‘Some who knew me by repute were very polite and fearfully respectful. Others, however, who had never heard of me, stared at me, wide eyed, certainly in a rather sneering manner. They probably think that because I am little and young, nothing great or mature can come out of me. But they will soon see.’ STEPHEN FRY Mozart believes that that weight of his talent will always come down on his side. ‘These idiots, don’t they know how wonderful I am?’ He has these feelings boiling up inside him, and how can you persuade anybody that you are more important than they are, that they should listen to you? COMM As his debts mount up, Mozart must seek a new position to make ends meet. DR. ROBERT GREENBERG Wolfgang knew that he had to make money. And then, in Mannheim, a job opens up. He will give lessons on the keyboard. It's terribly limiting for someone of Mozart’s talents. COMM One of Wolfgang’s new pupils is Aloysia Weber. The daughter of a court musician. DR. ROBERT GREENBERG The family have four daughters, and they're all wonderful musicians. And he falls totally head over heels for Aloysia. And he decides that he's gonna dedicate his life to making Aloysia the star that she should be. COMM Suddenly, Mozart finds a new passion for teaching. He composes a solo especially for Aloysia to perform. LUCY CROWE OBE He's never been inspired in this way before. Before now, he's been writing to earn money for the family. But now, it's purely coming from his heart, coming from his feelings. Must've felt unbelievable. LUCY CROWE OBE I think Aloysia feels overwhelmed when she opens this – this piece and sees just what Mozart has written for her. It’s him saying, ‘This is how I feel about you’. DR. FLORA WILSON Such a gracious melody. You can really hear him writing for a voice that he loves. You know, he's trying to show this off. Show her off. LUCY CROWE OBE He's inviting us into this sexual world, this world of pleasure. It's very seductive. It sounds sexy, ‘Ah, ah, ah’, and it's a sense of throbbing, whether that’s a heart pulsating, or whether it's something else throbbing. I mean if she wasn't in love with him already, she absolutely would be now. DR. ROBERT GREENBERG So come the spring in 1778, Mozart is in love. He writes his dad, he says, ‘Guess what dad? I've got a girlfriend, she's a wonderful singer', and, for her part, Aloysia is star struck by Mozart. And they make all sorts of plans together, of how they're going to tour Italy, maybe tour the Netherlands and Belgium. What we're starting to see is Mozart asserting his adulthood in a manner unthinkable, even months before. Well, this is Leopold's worst nightmare come true. RICHARD E GRANT ‘My dear son, I have read through your letter with amazement and horror. The aim of your journey consisted of two objectives, either to seek a permanent, good position of service, or, failing that, to move on to an important place where there are good earnings. But above all, to make a name and honour for yourself in the world. Now, it depends on entirely you alone, whether you will be penned by some woman in a room full of destitute children on a sack of straw, or, after leading a Christian life of contentment, honour and lasting fame, die respected by everyone.’ Leopold can't accept that his son is growing up. And therefore, Leopold writes, ‘I will tell you who you can marry, who you can fall in love with, and where you're going to perform’, and says, ‘Off with you to Paris, and that soon'. What a fuck! COMM Leopold may be hundreds of miles away, but he's still in charge. Mozart now has to leave the woman he loves and set off again, across Europe, to make money for his family. DR. ROBERT GREENBERG Mozart’s resentful. He doesn’t really wanna go to Paris. But, he is his father’s son, and he's gonna do what his father tells him to do for a little while longer. COMM Wolfgang asks for his father’s permission to go to France alone. But he's put in his place. DR. ROBERT GREENBERG Wolfgang says, ‘Mom should be allowed to come home. I can handle this myself’, Leopold says, ‘No, you're just a child, you can't do this yourself. Off with you.’ COMM It’s a nine-day journey to Paris. They take simple lodgings in a rundown neighbourhood, just above the Marais District. It's as close as they can afford to the centre of the music scene at Tuileries Palace. But things do not start well. CHRIS ADDISON Mozart’s appalled by Paris. He can't bear it, he can't understand it. It's this filthy city at this time, it's incredibly expensive. And he thinks, ‘What is this place?’ COMM Mozart’s mother, Maria Anna, struggles to settle in. She doesn’t speak the language, she finds the city hostile, and they’re broke. But Mozart‘s on a mission. DAME JANE GLOVER Wolfgang’s out all day, trying to find himself a job. Trying to ingratiate himself with the right people. And meanwhile, poor Maria Anna is left all alone. DAME SHEILA HANCOCK He's not around, Mozart, and she's lonely. It's dingy and cold and she can't get out. ‘As for my own life, it is not at all a pleasant one. I sit alone in our room the whole day, as if I were in jail. I cannot see the sun all day long. With great difficulty I manage to knit a little by the daylight that struggles in’. That is so sad. DAME JANE GLOVER It's hard to say whether Wolfgang does realise, and of course, mum was the last person to complain. COMM For Mozart though, Paris is a city of opportunity. And he’s arrived at a fortuitous time. CHRIS ADDISON He's enormously rude about the whole thing, and yet, this is the city in which he will discover that he can make music on his own terms. COMM Paris is changing. The Concert Spirituel is a new and radical idea. For the first time, paying punters can hear music at public events. Mozart spots a chance to compose not just to please an aristocratic patron - he can write for the people. DR. ROBERT GREENBERG The Concert Spirituel is dedicated to performing music for everybody, anyone who could afford a ticket. This was much more down Mozart’s alley. COMM The Musical Director is Joseph Legros, a star of Parisian opera. DR. FLORA WILLSON For the first time, Mozart is speaking musician to musician. And in fact, he finds a sympathetic listener, at last. And, he's commissioned to produce a symphony for them. EDWARD GARDNER OBE I think Mozart must've felt the greatest relief. His career up to this point wasn't easy. And now you get the impression that once again he felt, ‘I've made it’. COMM As a young man, Mozart has experienced his fair share of disappointment and heart break. But now, as he begins rehearsals in Paris, the stars are finally aligning. EDWARD GARDNER OBE With the Paris Symphony, Mozart’s being given an orchestra the scale of which he hadn't worked with before and hadn't really been heard before, 21 violins, eight celli, four violas, four basses and a full wind section. So, he's been given this tapestry to show off everything he can do. DR. FLORA WILSON The Concert Spirituel will allow him to do, essentially, whatever he can imagine doing with an orchestra, there are no limits. CHRIS ADDISON He's actually quite canny about the piece of music that he writes. He's thinking about a paying public. The audience. CHRIS ADDISON It's such a grabby opening. There's no slow start into some lovely theme, it's, ‘Bang, here we go’. DR. FLORA WILSON His Paris Symphony, it starts with these coup d'archet, these bow strokes. These big, emphatic chords to begin with, it's like it's fizzing. EDWARD GARDNER OBE And the effect this has on the audience is enormous. Mozart turns round and he sees them giggling and applauding. It feels like he's showing off. And you can hear in the music, the sheer joy of what he could achieve with this scale of orchestra. He'd gone from a small family car to a real F1 engine in front of him, and he was gonna enjoy every second of it. COMM But within days of the premiere, Mozart’s mother falls dangerously ill. DAME JANE GLOVER When Wolfgang does realise that his mother is really sick, he drops everything to be with her. But it's too late. DR. ROBERT GREENBERG Mozart’s mother got sicker and sicker. She went into a coma. Mozart is by her bedside. He watches her take her last breaths. He adores his mother. And he doesn’t know what to do. DR. FLORA WILSON And now, he's suddenly alone. Genuinely alone. And so, he writes this horribly moving letter to a friend in Salzburg to break the news. DAME SHEILA HANCOCK ‘Mourn with me, my friend. This was the saddest day of my life. I must tell you that my mother, my dear mother is no more. She went out like a light. I wished at that moment to depart with her.’ Oh dear. I don’t think he can quite believe it, can he, in that letter. COMM Mozart doesn’t know how to tell his father the news. It takes him five days to find the words. RICHARD E GRANT ‘Well, it is all over. God willed it. She was feted to sacrifice herself for her son. If your mother had returned home from Mannheim, she would not have died.’ And his father blames him for the mother’s death. This is what cruel people do. It's emotional blackmail. DAME JANE GLOVER Leopold implies that Wolfgang has not looked after his mother properly, and he's failed, in some way. And this seed, I regret to say, will grow over the next few years and he can always come back to that, ‘that you let your mother die in Paris’. COMM He’s 22 and for the first time in his life, Mozart is alone - without a parent to guide him. He turns, for solace, to the keyboard - the instrument his mother first heard him play. The sound, for him, of innocence and childhood. GOLDA SCHULTZ I see a person who’s in a lot of pain, and now he's looking to hold on to anything that’s gonna make him feel grounded. When he puts his fingers at the piano forte, the harmony will come. That is something he can hold on to, that is something real, that is something tangible, when everything else feels like it's falling apart. DAME SHEILA HANCOCK I have a feeling he's remembering practising, as a little boy, in front of his mother. It's such a clear vision, to me, of that woman. I can see her sitting, loving this kid, and doing her best for him. And he wanted to cherish that. You feel the sadness of the regret that he probably didn’t treat her as well as he should have done. It’s a wonderful mixture of happy memories, and the fact that they're over. That’s what I hear. COMM And then things get worse for Mozart. His dad writes claiming his son owes him money, and that he must return to Salzburg to repay the debt. RICHARD E GRANT ‘I hope, after your mother had to die so inappropriately in Paris, that you will not also have the furtherance of your father’s death on your conscience. You alone can save me from death, if it is God’s will. I want to live a few years longer, pay my debts, and then, if you care to do so, you can run your head against a wall.’ DR. FLORA WILSON It is like Groundhog Day for Mozart, he just can't get away from this place. DR. ROBERT GREENBERG Mozart is depressed, and grieving. He is beside himself. Once again, he's back to his father and he's back to the archbishop. COMM Mozart will spend the next two years stuck in Salzburg. Desperate to ‘get away’ from his boss, Archbishop Colloredo. STEPHEN FRY Mozart seemed disobedient, and that was unacceptable. And so Collor… Colloredo is always getting out his ruler and slapping Mozart on the hand, as it were, like a naughty schoolboy, and Mozart is [Gnashing] and – and furious. CHRIS ADDISON He's been in Salzburg, mouldering away, and then sort of out of nowhere, the Elector of Mannheim asks him to write an opera. And it's exactly what he wants to be doing. DR. FLORA WILSON Opera requires everything. It's not just music. It's also not just theatre. It's the combination of the two, it requires everything you’ve got as a composer. It's the most prestigious type of music out there. To be able to write a big, serious opera is the peak of a composer’s ambition at this point. CHRIS ADDISON What happens is that he writes what people now think of as being the first sort of mature operatic work of his career which is Idomeneo. COMM Mozart has been separated from his first love, bullied by his father, and has lost his mother. Now, on the grand stage of opera, he can pour out all that human drama. JAMES HAWES Mozart’s all over Idomeneo. He's revising the script, he's revising the music. He's helping to design the sets. So, this is a complete creative experience in which he's in charge. COMM Idomeneo will premiere in Munich, just days after Mozart’s 25th birthday. And as opening night approaches, he's bursting with confidence. ADJOA ANDOH ‘My very dear father, the rehearsal went extraordinarily well. I cannot tell you how full of joy and astonishment everyone was, but I did not expect anything else.’ DR. ROBERT GREENBERG By this time, Mozart had no self-doubt whatsoever. He knew his talent. He knew his worth. He just didn’t fear anyone. GOLDA SCHULTZ Everything that he's doing at that moment is really in response to his understanding of how the world works. He's learnt you're either controlled, or you are controlling. There is no in-between. GOLDA SCHULTZ Finally, he can be his own master. COMM Idomeneo is an epic family saga of a king and his son. The young prince is being sent into exile for reasons he cannot understand. EDWARD GARDNER OBE It's the story of a family, of course, and you feel these echoes of him and his father together so strongly in it. It also contains, perhaps, the most extraordinary piece of music that Mozart ever wrote, in my opinion, the Quartet. EDWARD GARDNER OBE The Quartet has the four central characters thinking about their loss, their son who they're never going to see again. And it's all bound together in music of the most extraordinary pathos. DR. FLORA WILSON And they're all coming from different perspectives. And, he manages to weave it all together into this fabric where it makes perfect musical sense. So, he's using the voices almost like four instruments. SIR DAVID McVICAR And it's one of the greatest quartets that anyone has ever written in any opera. In terms of getting that drama to its boiling point. SIR DAVID McVICAR And what we end up with is a quartet of such pain, heartache and beauty. I don’t know. I don’t know, I don’t know how he did it. COMM The opera ends with a glorious coronation. The gods allow the young prince to return home, on condition the old king, his father, gives up his crown. COMM Mozart’s own father is in the audience on the opening night. EDWARD GARDNER OBE It's extraordinary to think how Leopold Mozart would have felt, an opera about a father relinquishing the crown and giving it to the son. Because in that moment, Wolfgang is crowned. He's crowned the great composer that we know him to be today. SIR DAVID McVICAR Idomeneo is instantly acknowledged as being something exceptional. It's a game changer for – for Wolfgang. STEPHEN FRY Somewhere inside him is that ability to say, ‘No. Damn it, I am gonna put one finger up to you, I'm going to be Mozart, whether you want me to or not’. RICHARD E GRANT I think for a father to recognise that your son is so famous and so celebrated is a sort of double whammy of great pride on the one hand, and a feeling of your own failure on the other. That you will never achieve what your son has. But, you know, paternal pride and jealousy at the same time – lethal. COMM The child prodigy has grown up. SIR DAVID McVICAR It gives him the confidence to do what he does next, which is to go freelance, break away from dad, break away from Archbishop Colloredo, break away from Salzburg, break away from everything. Find himself.