Amadeus (with Sydney Urbanek)

To salute our May theme of “Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll,” Chad sits down with deputy cohost Fran Hoepfner and our special guest, movie and music writer Sydney Urbanek, to discuss the greatest initially-PG-rated movie of all time(?): Miloš Forman’s 1984 Amadeus. They get into childhood piano lessons, reading love letters in Salzburg, which composers hated their wives, modern resonance in period films, and the surprising extent of the Mozart cinematic universe, from Fernando and Carolina to Marie Antoinette. Subscribe to Sydney’s newsletter here, and sample Fran’s writing on classical music here.

The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is usually co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad Perman.

Find all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including this month’s sexy, druggy, rocked out issue, at brightwalldarkroom.com. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and the best way to widen our pod’s reach is to send love and lunch money via Patreon. We welcome listener feedback and sponsorship inquiries at [email protected]. Thanks for listening.