Critic Reviews

By the time the series breaks the fourth wall, Salieri transcends this story and becomes an avatar for all the depraved things desperate men will do when they’re convinced they deserve more than they’ve got. All of Amadeus’s contemporaneous stylistic and dialogue choices are a blast, but the series’ suggestion that this kind of guy is plaguing our present, too, feels the most timeless, and the most unsettling.

“Amadeus” allows these characters to fester under a fresh lens until they become a newer, often inexplicable beast. It’s a beast that doesn’t threaten the sanctity of the work from which it’s adapted, but one that cannibalizes itself instead, leaving in its wake a bolder, rawer creation.

It is a series that manages to be both vivacious and vicious and is a Christmas treat come early.

Sharpe is delectable in the role, precocious yet understated, and with an ambition both formidable and naïve, masking the pressure he’s under from his father, who wants him to move back to Salzburg so he can manage him. Bettany, meanwhile, is brilliantly restrained, seething with jealousy and repression.

This is a funny, sumptuous, intelligent take on the play — far from merely a cover version.

It does what every worthwhile adaptation does (and what so many other recent re-adaptations have failed to do), which is make the story feel complete unto itself.

Amadeus works as a series, not just because it looks fantastic, but that the main characters are treated as the nuanced people they were, and there seems to be less filler than one might expect.

It’s an intriguing balance of themes that, at five hours, also starts to feel spread a bit thin at times. .... Still, a trio of strong performances and the chance to watch some elaborately staged versions of Mozart’s most famous operas go a long way towards keeping things engaging—especially when the finale sticks the landing so powerfully.

Showrunner Joe Barton’s production isn’t in the same leagues, but it’s good enough thanks to the dedication of its two leads — Paul (“Wandavision”) Bettany as the conniving and cruelly envious Salieri and Will (“The White Lotus” season 2) Sharpe as the bad boy 18th century groundbreaking composer with daddy issues.

There are plenty of bits of hits, but missing is the play’s probing examination of quite why Mozart is so new and astonishing.