August 12 If you think you’ve seen every possible iteration of “Mozart vs. Salieri”—and or if you thought filmmaker Miloš Forman’s Oscar-winning 1984 film was the definitive portrait of this story— think again. Sky’s new five-part limited series “Amadeus” transforms Peter Shaffer’s legendary 1979 stage play into a vivid, sensual psychodrama for television — a feverish portrait of genius, envy, and divine punishment reframed for a modern audience.
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The trailer opens with the pulse of orchestral chaos as Will Sharpe — best known for “Giri/Haji” and “The White Lotus” — steps into the role of Wolfgang “Amadeus” Mozart, no longer a powdered prodigy but a restless 25-year-old firebrand storming through 18th-century Vienna. His arrival in the imperial capital sets off a collision of art and ambition: the loyal Constanze Weber, played by Gabrielle Creevy (“In My Skin,” “Black Doves”), and the pious court composer Antonio Salieri, embodied by Paul Bettany (“WandaVision,” “A Very British Scandal”), whose adoration of God curdles into obsession with Mozart’s talent.
“Amadeus” also stars Rory Kinnear as Emperor Joseph, Lucy Cohu as Cecilia Weber, Jonathan Aris, Ényì Okoronkwo, Jessica Alexander, and a supporting ensemble of courtiers, family, and rivals surrounding the gifted but self-destructive composer. The result is a lavish and volatile vision of artistic freedom at odds with divine order — a story as modern in its psychology as it is baroque in its setting.
Visually, the series appears poised to blend the prestige of TV with the ecstatic theatricality of its source. Candlelit ballrooms pulse with color, powdered wigs whip through kinetic montages, and a sense of divine irony — the original play’s moral core — radiates from Bettany’s tortured narration. The trailer teases both sensual excess and spiritual crisis, cutting between Sharpe’s manic bursts of laughter and Salieri’s silent prayers for vengeance.
Written by Joe Barton (“Giri/Haji,” the science-fiction thriller “The Lazarus Project,” and the spy drama “Black Doves”) and directed by Anne Sewitsky (“A Very British Scandal,” “Happy, Happy”), “Amadeus” reframes Shaffer’s themes of envy and transcendence for a postmodern audience obsessed with fame, burnout, and authenticity. The project marks one of Sky’s most ambitious prestige dramas to date — a lush re-examination of genius and jealousy that feels both timeless and uncomfortably contemporary.
“Amadeus” premieres on Sky in December. No word on a U.S. date yet, but you can watch the teaser trailer below.
