The legend of Antonio Salieri, who poisoned the young genius Mozart out of envy, is brought back to life in the production by Ferdinando Bruni and Francesco Frongia: Amadeus exalts the dramatic power of Peter Shaffer's work – made famous by Miloš Forman's Oscar-winning film – transforming it into a sumptuous and hallucinatory caprice, a dream that slowly transforms into the disturbing contours of a nightmare.

The composer Antonio Salieri from Legnago is a pious and generous man, an esteemed and famous musician, but God has chosen to make his voice heard in the world through that of a reckless and irreverent young man: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Shaffer constructs an apologue on envy, but also on the admiration mixed with dismay that we feel in the presence of a genius who transcends the ordinary boundaries of talent.
The scene imagined by Bruni/Frongia is a hall that Salieri's delirium transforms into a labyrinth; a portrait of a past that can no longer be pieced together through reason, from which the characters emerge like puppets, dressed in the clothes of an imaginary 18th century created by Italian stylist and costume designer Antonio Marras, against the backdrop of phantasmagorical projections from a magic lantern.
Premiered at the National Theatre in London in 1979, Amadeus was an immediate success, confirmed on Broadway with three Tony Awards, including Best Show, Best Director (Peter Hall) and Best Actor (Ian McKellen).