History salutes Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The classic film has just been remastered and re-released, forty years on. But few people know that Mozart had a big sister, Maria Anna. ‘The Other Mozart’ tells her story.

Both children were born to middle-class parents. The tales of Wolfgang, the child prodigy, are well-known but Maria Anna also displayed early promise and the pair spent portions of their childhood touring Europe. Sylvia Milo’s script makes light work of the barriers she faced from an early age – not allowed to play the harpsichord until she was eight, not allowed to play the violin as she was a woman, living always in the shadow of her precocious young brother despite abundant talent. We learn of the rise and fall of the family, pinning their hopes on Wolfgang’s success but frequently reduced to living in poverty while he waited, eternally waited for an imperial commission.

Maria Anna’s costume doubles as the set and it’s ravishing (Magdalena Dabrowska, Miodrag Guberinic). The final moments of the show when the masterpiece is displayed at last with stunning effect, are extravagantly beautiful. Both set and props artfully convey the terrible waste of this woman’s talents – she’s trapped in her gilt cage and her work, always taken less seriously, litters the stage. Lovely sound design (Nathan Davis) combines Mozart’s music with ambient sound effects to whisk us from Salzburg to Vienna to Munich to Paris and back again. Joshua Rose’s lighting nicely frames this woman as she’s forced to live her life in the shadows.

The writer, Milo, alternates performing the role with Daniela Galli and this performance featured Galli. She delivered a complicated script with easy grace – navigating a midway fire alarm with equally calm aplomb – but left us in no doubt that the bed Maria Anna was forced to lie in was nothing like the one she’d have chosen.

It’s great to see this story added to the canon of works about too frequently forgotten women from history though her story contains plenty that (sadly) still resonates today.

‘The Other Mozart‘ is at Assembly George Square Studios – Studio Two until Mon 25 Aug 2025 at 13:45