Richard Wagner once said that he believed in three things – God, Beethoven, and Mozart. It is somewhat mysterious that Wagner would feel such a kinship with Mozart. The two were separated by almost a century, but they shared much. For Mozart, who had written in just about every form of classical music, opera was his heart: "Opera to me comes before everything else."

Mozart was destined for a difficult life, caught between the wills of two strong men – his father, Leopold, and his employer, the Archbishop of Salzburg. By the looks of things, it was an unfair fight. Leopold Mozart was the kapellmeister to the Archbishop of Salzburg, and a pretty good violinist. He even penned a "how-to" book of violin technique for the fresh crop of middle-class amateur musicians who were emerging. Mozart was the seventh and last child to Leopold and Anna Maria. Of the couple’s seven children, only Mozart and his sister Nannerl lived to adulthood. This may help to explain the peculiar and somewhat vexing relationship between Leopold and Mozart.

Leopold soon recognized Nannerl and Mozart’s musical gifts. Nannerl was not just proficient at the keyboard; she was a child prodigy. Mozart began writing his first pieces when he was just 5, the same year he made his first appearance. Leopold knew a good thing (and a profitable thing) when he saw it, and the Mozarts hit the road. Leopold trotted them out in Munich, Vienna, Frankfurt, Brussels, and Paris, stopping between scheduled appearances to give impromptu concerts. Legend has it that Leopold taught Mozart the violin while they were on the road. Leopold was most likely Mozart’s only teacher since the boy never received any formal education or musical training. These tours were exhausting, with the Mozarts bedding down at monasteries. It was important for Leopold to get Mozart out in front of the public as often as he could and as soon as he could, while Mozart was still young enough for audiences to be dazzled by his gifts. And dazzled they were. Mozart’s appearances were more exhibitions than concerts, at times. He was poked and prodded and made to perform various feats: improvising music in numerous styles, sight-reading, and, a favorite with the public, playing with a cloth covering his hands. And although these parlor tricks may seem rather inane, they helped to spread the word about Mozart.

Leopold was the ultimate stage mother; plotting and pacing Mozart’s every move, and feeding an already shaky psyche a steady diet of paranoia. He taught Mozart to distrust other musicians and composers, helping to make the boy more isolated than he already was. Leopold also made Mozart the center of his universe, a dangerous move that would have some sad consequences. Mozart’s personality, though, could never be subdued. Once while he was still quite young, Mozart was being led by two noble ladies to see the empress. Unfortunately, the little boy who was a bit unsteady on the overly-polished floor, slipped and fell. One of the ladies picked him up and quieted him and he proposed to her right on the spot. The lady was Marie Antoinette and, no, the marriage did not happen.

It was Leopold’s great hope that the nobility would offer Mozart a position, but sometimes fate needs a little bit of help. Opera had become a very popular diversion of the aristocracy, and in 1768, Leopold prompted Mozart to write one. It was a disaster, not so much because of the music but because of the backstage scandals that plagued the production. Mozart would take the operatic plunge two years later with his Mitridate, ré di Ponto, premiered in Italy 1770, with great success, making the fourteen-year-old composer a sensation, even though the opera clocked in at a grizzly 6 hours.

The Mozarts made more trips to Italy. Leopold was anxious for Mozart to find a position outside of Salzburg, but in July of 1772, Mozart was formally employed as concert master for the Archbishop of Salzburg’s court. Mozart’s tumultuous relationship with his employer was a battle of wills. While Leopold wanted his son to be the pet of the nobility, the Archbishop never wanted Mozart to forget his servile condition. Mozart and the Archbishop’s relationship only worsened when Leopold whisked Mozart off on yet another concert tour, this time to Vienna. The Vienna visit exposed Mozart to the latest music of Franz Joseph Haydn. Mozart wrote a lot of music while in Vienna, including a group of symphonies. The return to Salzburg, though, took the wind out of his sails. The music scene there could not compete with the endless possibilities offered by the Viennese. The Archbishop’s dislike of Mozart became more pronounced, with Leopold’s interference only making it worse. He filled Mozart’s head with conspiracy theories, claiming that all of Salzburg was after them. The climax occurred in 1777 when the Archbishop fired both Mozarts. Leopold went back and begged for his job, and Mozart hit the road, this time with his mother.

They traveled to Mannheim, one of the most important musical centers, and then to Paris, where his mother became fatally ill and died in July. In the meantime, Leopold had intervened on Mozart’s behalf with the Archbishop and secured a post for him at court. He ordered Mozart back to Salzburg. Needless to say, Mozart took the long way home, stopping off in Mannheim with the hopes of getting a musical post there, but left disappointed. He went on to Munich where he received a commission to write his opera Idomeneo. The opera had an enthusiastic opening in January of 1781, but Mozart could not rest on his laurels. The Archbishop was in Vienna for a visit and he sent for Mozart. To be back in Vienna, a place of opportunity for a musician, under the Archbishop’s thumb was too much for Mozart and soon the silent battle of wills became an all-out brawl. The Archbishop released Mozart from his contract in July of 1781, and Mozart went off to stay with some old friends – the Webers. He had met the Webers while visiting Mannheim and he had fallen in love with one of their daughters, Aloysia. Unfortunately, during the years between their first meeting and his departure from the Archbishop, Aloysia had married someone else, and Mozart turned his attentions to her sister, Constanze.

The marriage of Mozart and Constanze was fairly happy. They cared for each other deeply, but it was their money that they could not manage. Neither of them could deal with business matters. Six months into their marriage found them in financial quicksand. Without the steady, reliable income from a patron, Mozart was forced to give lessons and concerts. He never had that many students, but he was an outstanding pianist. The Emperor was one of his biggest fans, but his gossiping advisors were not, shutting Mozart out from any legitimate post at court. Adding to the young couple’s problems was family fallout from the wedding. Both Leopold and Nannerl were angry with the union, though Leopold’s fears were centered on his ambitions for Mozart’s career. Just one month before Mozart’s wedding, his opera The Abduction from the Seraglio had been given a successful premiere.

Abduction was a major victory for Mozart and the future of German opera. Here is a little background. Most operas in Mozart’s time were written in Italian, no matter what language the audience spoke. Even some of Mozart’s operas were in Italian, but he yearned for operas written in German – a German language for a German people. He also made his operas more accessible to the public through greater character development. Instead of three hours of abstracted emotion detached from reality, Mozart’s characters pulsed with life. He took his audiences on a trip deep inside the psyche of his characters, exposing their thoughts and feelings about the action, and making a trail for Wagner to take all the way up to Valhalla.

Mozart teamed up with the famous dramatist Lorenzo da Ponte on several projects, including The Marriage of Figaro (1786). It played to a packed house. In fact, audiences were so taken with it that several numbers were repeated, and some arias sung three times, extending a simple night at the opera into a marathon test of stamina. Eventually the emperor had to ban all encores. After the success of Figaro, Mozart and da Ponte again teamed up and the result was Don Giovanni (1787), what George Bernard Shaw called the greatest opera ever composed. Mozart, ever the procrastinator, worked on the opera to the wire, pulling an all-nighter on the night before its Prague premiere to write the overture. Constanze kept a steady stream of beverages going and told Mozart fairy tales throughout the night to keep him awake and working. Its premiere one year later in Vienna was a bit chilly, but the emperor still had faith in Mozart and in 1790 commissioned another opera from Mozart and da Ponte – Così fan tutte. The emperor died one month later and his successor upheld the previous administration’s policy on not officially hiring Mozart.

Mozart was forced to beg money from his friends, one of whom, Emanuel Schikaneder, was manager of a small theatre. He invited Mozart to compose an opera. The result, Mozart’s Magic Flute, was a curious mixture, blending together mythological elements with heavy Masonic imagery. And although German musicologists would call Magic Flute the foundation for German Romantic opera, it took a while for audiences to warm to it. While he was composing Magic Flute, Mozart received a commission from a mysterious stranger for a requiem mass. One of the more popular rumors circulated after Mozart’s death was that this mysterious stranger was Mozart’s rival Antonio Salieri, but it was actually the servant of one Count Walsegg. The Count was an amateur composer who passed the Requiem Mass off as his own. All of this came at a precarious time in Mozart’s life. His physical health was deteriorating. He had fainting spells, depression, and paranoid delusions. He also had the persistent belief that he was being poisoned. Mozart died in December of 1791 from malignant typhus fever and was buried in a pauper’s grave, an unfitting end to someone who filled the world with such sweetness. He brought the Viennese Classical style to its height, but his influence extends well beyond to tenor Luciano Pavarotti, and even the abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko. Richard Wagner said it best: "A most prodigious genius has raised him above all the masters of all time and in all the arts."