Will Sharpe Leads Starz's Amadeus in Five-Episode Run
will sharpe stars as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Starz's five-hour Amadeus, which puts the composer rivalry back on television with a premiere at 8 p.m. Friday, May 8. Paul Bettany plays Antonio Salieri, and the series arrives as a new adaptation of Peter Shaffer's 1979 play.
Salieri's 1824 Confession
The miniseries is built around Salieri's end-of-life confession, a framing that shifts the story away from simple biography and toward the older composer's version of events. In late 1824, Salieri summons Constanze Mozart to make that confession, which turns the drama into a memory piece instead of a straight timeline.
Joe Barton created the series, and Gabrielle Creevy also stars. Starz is betting on a five-hour format that lets the material breathe across five hourlong episodes rather than compressing the rivalry into a single film-length pass.
Vienna in 1781
The story is set in Vienna in 1781, where Salieri is presented as a respected composer with a few big hits under his belt and the favor of Emperor Joseph II. Mozart arrives as a brash young Salzburger overflowing with big ideas, and the collision between those two versions of talent drives the series.
That setup also gives the new version a businesslike advantage over the 1984 Milos Forman film: five episodes leave room for the slow grind of jealousy, patronage, and professional status that the movie could only sketch.
Peter Shaffer's 1979 Play
Peter Shaffer wrote Amadeus in 1979, and the play was itself loosely based on Alexander Pushkin's 1830 work. The new series follows the same rivalry and the same core accusation Salieri carries about Mozart, while moving the story into television form for another run at the material.
Salieri's line — "I’ve met my fair share of prodigies in my time" — lands as the first dismissive move in that conflict, followed by "Can’t say I remember many of their names now, though." Those lines make clear how the series wants to frame its central tension: not as admiration, but as a man trying to diminish the rival he believes defined his own failure.
For viewers, the practical takeaway is simple: the new Amadeus starts at 8 p.m. Friday, May 8, and this version is built around performance as much as prestige casting. If the five-episode structure works, Starz gets a longer shelf life from a story that has already survived a play, a film, and now a fresh television adaptation.
