Fame

"What had I begged for in that church as a boy? Was it not fame?" Oh yes, this is what Shaffer's Salieri asks for and what God grants him: fame, temporary fame. But not excellence, and so, ultimately, "Mozart's music sounded louder and louder through the world! And mine faded completely". All of Salieri's plotting against Mozart has actually come to naught. In a last desperate attempt to rebalance the scales of fame, then, Salieri spreads the rumour that he is Mozart's murderer: "I will be remembered! - if not in fame, then infamy." This statement reveals a lot about the nature of fame: On the one hand about why people want it and on the other hand about its intricate connection to the infamous.

What motivates the urge to become famous? According to 16th century philosopher Thomas Hobbes, there are three basic reasons for conflict or war among people: the desire for personal enrichment, the desire for safety and the desire for fame and glory. It is not surprising that it was a man of the 16th century who set down these hypotheses, for it is during this period that the god-centered medieval world-view that had assigned man a fixed place in the universe begins to crumble. Man finds himself increasingly alone. In a secularized world, he is no longer part of God's cosmic plan. He is just one minute, unimportant particle, pursuing its course in the universe and vanishing without a trace when time is up. But fame lifts a man above his fellow men and fame can - if it lasts longer than the 15 minutes Andy Warhol allots to everybody - make you immortal, at least a bit. Fear of death and oblivion is certainly one motivation for people to seek fame, especially in a modern world. This might well be true for Shaffer's Salieri, who, in his old age, is threatened by total obliteration and oblivion, especially so since he seems to have no children, just brain-children - his musical works. A recent psychological theory - called "terror management theory", based on works by Ernest Becker - supposes that it is man's awareness of his own mortality and the fear it engenders that fundamentally distinguish humans from animals. Becker assumes that through the creation of culture and ideology - things that outlast the individual - man tries to deal with this existential dread and the pursuit of fame is probably also one of the measures that serve to alleviate the fear of death.

But fame does not just offer a share of immortality. Rather, it bears a Janus face and can also increase man's mortality. Fame makes people vulnerable, because the desire for fame is as old as the envy it provokes in those who are not quite so successful. And some of those who cannot participate in a person's fame in a positive manner may try to do so in the opposite way. It is actually not so important if you marry a famous man or if you murder him, if public attention is what you seek. So Salieri decides to participates in Mozart's glory by fashioning himself as his murderer. To achieve this, as is revealed in the very first scene, he relies on the power of rumour and his little rumour-mongers, his venticelli or 'little winds'. It is in this aspect that a rather old etymological component of the word fame is highlighted, for the Oxford English Dictionary lists as one meaning: "That which people say or tell; public report, common talk; a particular instance of this, a report, rumour." Fame is - in contrast to talent - nothing absolute, nothing inherent in a person, it lies in the hands of others to grant it, and in classical mythology, Fama, or Fame is actually the goddess of Rumour, described by lexicon of mythology as: "The last daughter of Gaia. She is a terrible winged creature who delights in ruffling feathers. Her own feathers are never still; beneath every one is a prying eye, a pricked ear and a wagging tongue. She flies from place to place at great speed, gabbling and screeching lies and half-truths to any that will listen" - an ancient sister of the venticelli, it seems. All the more tragic then, that, at the very end, the 'little winds' who spread the rumour about Salieri's murder, declare that even they do not think him guilty of killing Mozart: "No one believes it in the world". So in Shaffer's play, Salieri's last desperate plan has failed. We do not know if the ‚real', the historical Salieri entertained similar notions about fame. However, as we can see tonight, Salieri is indeed not forgotten. And he is not even remembered in infamy, but imagined as a complex personality, torn between desire and virtue, bringing fame to quite another man, namely his author, Peter Shaffer. Amadeus is probably Shaffer's most popular play, not least due to the film version by Milos Forman. Thus, with regard to the fame gained for both Salieri and Shaffer through Amadeus, we might conclude with Salieri's words, spoken while he invokes his audience at the beginning of the play: "There. It worked."