BWW Reviews: THE OTHER MOZART, St James Theatre Studio, September 10 2015

Somewhere in the backs of our minds, we know that Mozart, along with the scatological quips and the hyperactivity, toured as a child prodigy, playing for the Crowned Heads of Europe. Somewhere too, we may be vaguely aware of a sister, no less talented, who also toured, but who disappeared from history, as so many girls did (and, in many parts of the world, still do) at the onset of womanhood. The Other Mozart tells the sister's tale, giving voice to Maria Anna, a talent forgotten, but one no less impressive than her celebrated brother.

Sylvia Milo, as Maria Anna, takes us back to the early days, the big sister competing for her father's love and attention once the tiny "Wolfie" shows those first signs of genius. Milo charges about the stage, as pleased as punch whenever she gets praise, but already just a little jealous of her brother, already aware that she is now second best.

Once she hits her teenage years, her role in life changes from musician to potential wife and mother, and she is barred from recitals, trapped in provincial Salzburg, embroidering and learning how to run a household. She rebels, locking herself away - but this is the 18th century and a woman's place was very much in the home.

Milo conveys Maria Anna's pain and anger well, flinging letters to the floor, howling with rage, eventually tying herself into a dress that acts like an enormous straitjacket, stretching across the stage the way her talent once stretched across Europe, but trapping her like an animal, stuck raising stepchildren in a dull marriage and giving music lessons to those with less than a millionth of her gifts.

The show is a committed presentation of a story that needs to be told, but it's also rather short of the music that lies at the heart of the Mozart identity, the tunes heard only in glimpses and not played live at all. Perhaps that distance is deliberate though - after all, Maria Anna was kept distant from the music too.

The Other Mozart continues at St James Theatre Studio until 19 September.

To post a comment, you must register and login.