Mr. Mozart

Yesterday was the last day of school before semester break, but Paddy slept late and missed most of it. When he did get up, he looked well rested and cheerfully announced, "Mozart is dead and I'm free." I think that probably also applies to my entire permanent and extended household in general.

Looking with some dismay at my inbox, I find it somewhat difficult to comprehend that the rest of the world has simply gone on about its business without us, as we were all thoroughly engrossed in the life and death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – over and over and over again in recent weeks, but especially Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evening last week, when Paddy performed the role of Mozart in a very elaborate and ambitious school production of "Amadeus". Most of the teachers and other parents who know Paddy as someone who is usually very quiet and reserved, were quite startled by his lively performance. He really was very convincing in his role, but I don't think it was entirely a matter of accident or good direction: in fact, he actually does have an almost uncanny ability to instantly memorize and reproduce any melody that captures his attention and to spontaneously invent variations on it. Watching the first performance from the audience, Christopher also recognized his brother's personality traits that can be both delightfully funny and also excruciatingly irritating – like his sharp wit and his occasional impatience with people who just don't get it – and said he would have been happy to have played Salieri and had an opportunity to murder his brother on stage, as he recognized how Salieri felt.

However, I was also impressed with Paddy's acting skills, especially in dealing with unexpected occurrences, such as when "Constanze" started humming the "March of the Toreadors" from "Carmen" instead of the theme from a Mozart opera that was supposed to be his cue, or when "Salieri" mixed up the names of the women. When Paddy made his first appearance on stage the first night with his hands in his pockets, I was horrified to realize that if he took both hands out of his pockets at once, his pants would simply fall off. He did an excellent job of playing that he was just too cool to take both hands out of pockets even when meeting the emperor, though. And as thin and frail as he looks, his portrayal of Mozart's decline and death was quite convincing and heart-wrenching (I'm obviously a thoroughly impartial and neutral critic!). At the end of the play every night, though, when a large dark figure appeared to carry the "corpse" away, it was all I could do to keep from shouting, "Be careful, Raoul, don't drop my little guy!" Poor Paddy ended up battered and bruised enough from being tossed around all over the stage as it was.

For the last two performances Christopher played a minor role as one of the "Venticelli", the gossip-mongers and extras in various scenes, and he was much happier being on stage than in the audience. As small as his role was, he certainly made a striking impression with his comic delivery, apparently reminding a surprising number of people of the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" with his make-up, which he was in no hurry to remove later.

I didn't expect this play to consume our entire life as it has, especially over the past two weeks, but it has been an exhilarating experience. Nevertheless, I have to admit that I am also relieved now that Mozart is dead and we are all free again. Tomorrow night we are going to another play to celebrate Paddy's 15th birthday on Monday, which seems a good way to start the well deserved and needed semester break.

In the meantime, I need to start catching up again on work and other commitments.