Salieri is based on the real Antonio Salieri (1750-1825), an Italian composer whose operas are rarely performed but who served as a major influence in the course of music history. Shaffer’s fictional Salieri is the play’s protagonist and narrator. The play begins on what Salieri has decided will be the last night of his life, and Salieri is confessing to the audience that he ruined Mozart’s life and is taking credit for killing him to preserve his place in history and memory. However, Salieri clearly points out that he is not confessing out of guilt or to achieve absolution. The reenactments throughout the play and the other historical figures are shown from Salieri’s perspective and through a lens of his bias. Despite Salieri’s fictional agency in the storytelling and lack of remorse, the reenactments cast him in a negative light, driven to madness and cruelty due to his pride and petty jealousy. 

The historical Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) was an extremely productive composer born in Salzburg (in what is now Austria) whose compositions have lived on after his death to make him one of the most famous composers in history.