Mozart: Rise of a Genius

The low score of some reviewers seems like it's addressing Classical music connoisseurs and experts. For a beginner like myself, who knows very little or nothing about Mozart and some of his masterpieces, their musical meaning and composition it's a tutorial in appreciating Classical music from one the best composer that lived. Mozart life story seems a mess and the movie Amadeus (7/10) showed some of it in a humorous way, which I enjoyed very much especially when the Emperor says "There is Too many notes, just take some out" 😊. This documentary takes a more factual route about the life of Mozart and I learned so much about the man, his genius and his masterpieces which I started to listen to more closely. Having attended a Mozart orchestral concert at Sydney Opera House I now know I would have enjoyed it more if I watched this documentary before the concert. 8/10.

Apart from the facts, there is so much wrong with this, it's difficult to know where to start!! The easiest part is the lead doesn't look like Mozart did in the slightest. He doesn't behave like the contemporary accounts describe, and he's a pretty bad actor to boot. Now the worst parts, the 'talking heads'. Even the real experts, world class soprano, conductor etc have been seduced to talk absolute rubbish. Comedians, actors & other celebrities chatter mindlessly about the man's life. The supporting actors and settings clearly haven't been invested in at all. Overall it's another cheap production,

We are only interested in the man Mozart life for one reason, how it impacted his music. This show failed to demonstrate that connection, and whilst proposing to read his letters barely covered them as the show progressed.

The show was then populated by a weird collection of characters that supplied anecdotal comments on their liking of his music. The experts failed to drill down the nature of Mozart's musical uniqueness, or why in basic terms he sits between Haydn and Beethoven. There was little understanding of his instruments, how he composed, who helped him, other major works at the same time, and the role of fashion and taste.

It really was a terrible mess and at best 3 outta 10.

Unfortunately, this program follows the trend these days of flitting around so much that it gives the viewer whiplash. Apparently it was put together by people with an attention span of milliseconds.

It kept flashing between bits of history, snippets of music, and commentators seemingly dragged from anywhere, who all insisted on adding their ten cents' worth -- and most of which we could have done without.

The result was a fragmented mish-mash that was unsatisfying and hard to watch. It would have been better if they'd stuck to the history and ditched the commentators.

I kept hoping it would improve. It didn't.

How can you do a history of Mozart and not mention Lorenzo DaPonte? Not even once.

His three most famous operas all with libretti written by DaPonte with whom Mozart had an amazing partnership - but not even mentioned!

For Figaro, Don Giovanni and Cosi - They repeatedly say that Mozart wrote the opera which is false. They are DaPonte's words, characters and stories to which Mozart set his timeless music.

DaPonte get no credit for which I am sure even Mozart would be sad about.

Also no mention that Don Giovanni was actually premiered in Prague and of his time there.

But plenty of teary-eyed swooning from the 'very important special personalities'.

So many obvious gaps and historical omissions that it does make you wonder what else might not be quite right.

The pieces chosen to highlight the operas have little coherence and the summaries lack enough to convey what they are really about.

Not really convinced that the actor chosen to play Mozart was quite right but probably an impossible task in any case.