The Women Behind the Prodigy...
“I want you to be the best. “
Leopold Mozart

Charli Eglington is a powerhouse of musical composition, writing the book, the music and the lyrics of Saving Mozart one of a dozen musicals she’s been involved with, and she is in her mid twenties. We have to see whether she is the prodigious talent that was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Izzy Monk and Jack Chambers) and his sister Nanneri (Aimee Atkinson). Many of us are familiar with Amadeus a tremendous hit with its emphasis on the rivalry between Mozart and Salieri, albeit not all was historically correct.
Although Charli Eglington’s modern pop songs are said to have a basis in Mozart’s music I could hear hardly any apart from a few notes from Eine Kleine Nachtmusic and similarily few from the Queen of the Night aria from the Magic Flute. There is a scene between Mozart and Salieri (a wonderful Goth Jordan Luke Gage) where Mozart plays a very few notes on the piano of his original music and we long for more.

We open with a modern set, a gigantic letter M should we forget whom this musical is about. A wooden piano is choreographed around the stage with half a dozen working hard but unimpressive dancers. The next visual to grab you apart from Ben Jacobs’ spectacular lighting are the curious monochrome costumes, like the ones in the early days of Shakespeare’s Globe, when cash strapped they dressed the top half in period and the bottom half in then twentieth century ordinary. I really disliked the net cuffs added to bare arms to indicate 18th century. The women come off worse with a corset, frilly bustles and trousers below. What was Julia Pschdezki thinking?

The story concentrates on Mozart’s sister Nanneri who is her father Leopold (Douglas Hansell)’s first prodigy as she is four years older than her brother Wolfgang. However as Nanneri gets older her father says her playing music would have her classed as a whore, a profession grown women could not adopt. Leopold is a hard task master and takes the eight year old Mozart on tours of the European courts.
Salzburg is seen as too provincial for such musical talent, but later Leopold wished Mozart to stay working for the court of Salzburg’s ruler Prince-Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo. Gloria Onitiri is Anna Maria Mozart, his mother with a towering wig and sad costume choice who misses her son when he goes to live in Vienna.
I was disappointed by the choreography finding it unimaginative and just a scene filler.

The third influential woman is not Mozart’s first love, a German soprano Aloysia Weber but her sister Constanze (Erin Caldwell), who becomes Mozart’s muse and as his wife, dominates the second act. Here Gloria Onitiri is recast as Constanze’s mother and Mozart’s landlady.
There is prodigious singing talent from Aimee Atkinson, Gloria Onitiri, Erin Caldwell, Izzy Monk and Jack Chambers but the only song that really blew me away was by Jordan Luke Gage as Salieri putting down Mozart in “Know Your Place”. We feel the damage done to Mozart’s self esteem by his domineering father when he was just a child.
I left feeling I needed more of Mozart’s music in this biographical musical.

Musical Numbers
Act One
Remember Me
Yours to Write
I See the Light
Take the World by Storm
He’s Only A Child
Watch Me
Remember Me (Reprise)
Doomed to Fail
Believe Me
I’m Ready
Because of You/Move On
Act Two
Listen to Me
You Just Don’t Know It Yet
Know You’re Place
Stand Up Stand Down
I Say No
This Won’t Break Me
I Can’t Wait to Meet You
Living a Lie
You Amaze Me
I Don’t Believe You
Watch Me (Reprise)
The World Will As Well
Production Notes
Saving Mozart
Music Book and Lyrics by Charli Eglington
Co-Directors: Taylor Walker, Markus Olzinger
Developed with, and directed by Rachel Chavkin
Cast
Starring:
Aimie Atkinson
Jack Chambers,
Erin Caldwell
Jordan Luke Gage
Douglas Hansell
Gloria Onitiri
With:
Sveva Bartolini
Harriette Benazir-White
Corey Mitchell
Anu Ogunmefun
Ebony Roy-Palmer
Alfie Simmons
Ritesh Manugula
Gleanne Purcell Brown
Carla Lopez Corpas
Izzie Monk.
Creatives
Director:Taylor Walker, Markus Olzinger
Set Designer: Justin Williams
Costume Designer: Julia Pschdezki
Choreographer: Taylor Walker
Musical Supervisor and Director: Robert Wicks
Lighting Designer: Ben Jacobs
Sound Designer: Tom Marshall
Information
Running Time: Two hours 20 minutes with an interval
Booking until 30th August 2025
Theatre:
The Other Palace
Palace Street
Victoria
London SW1E 5JA
Rail/Tube: Victoria
Reviewed by Lizzie Loveridge
at the Other Palace on
5th August 2025