Tanz der vampire in Vienna

If you look up “Tanz der vampire” in wikipedia you will learn that 70% of the music for the show is recycled material. I’m not sure just how this figure is calculated but it does paint a rather distorted picture of just how much music was written for the show. Let’s take a look at what’s new and whats old.

New songs written for TdV:

Hey Ho Professor/ Sie Irren Professor

Knoblauch/Wuscha Buscha

Eine Schöne tochter ist ein segen

Nie Gesehen (ein mädchen das so lächeln kann)

Alles is hell/Wahrheit/Ein Perfekter tag/Bücher Bücher

Du bist wirklich sehr nett

Draussen ist Freiheit*

Tot zu sein ist komisch

When liebe in dir ist

* chorus shares some resemblance with “Something of this masquerade may follow”, but is really a new song

Old Songs released on CD prior to TdV:

Ouverture (The Storm)

God ist tot/Einadung Zum Ball/Tanzsaal (Original Sin)

Totale Finsternis/Tanzsaal (Total Eclipse of the heart)

Die Unstillbare Gier (Objects in the rear view mirror)

Ewigkeit (Bolero)*

Der Tanz der vampire (Tonight is what it means to be young)

* not really sure if this was released on the “Bat out of Hell” CD’s  prior to the show, but it is also known as “Gods” from Neverland

Songs from old musicals:

Vor dem Schloss/Carpe Noctem (Come with me we know love, City Nights)

In Der gruft (Who needs the young)

Für Sarah (Milady)

The big themes from “Original sin” and “Total Eclipse of the heart” are used as instrumentals during the entire show.

The finnish production of Tanz der vampire is closing for this season with the last performance on March 24th, so hurry op if you want to see the vampires rock in finnish.

Theater Website

With some good planning you can combine the trip with a visit to St. Petersburg as the theater of musical comedy has announced new dates of “Bal Vampirov” in March. It takes the same time (3,5 hours)  to go to both Seinäjoki and St. Petersburg from Helsinki.

Website

The hungarian production is also running again in september 2012.

Website

The german show in Berlin has extended it’s run until 2013.

Website

Jim Steinman and Andrew Lloyd Webbers musical “Whistle down the wind” had been released the amateur theaters in UK and Ireland. For more info visit the website.

Last night I had the pleasure of seeing the succesful finnish version of the musical “Tanz der Vampire” in the city of Seinäjoki about 350 km north of the capitol Helsinki. Upon arrival one might wonder, why the scandinavian premiere of this musical is set in this relatively small city, but the local theater, designed by the famous arcitect Alvar Alto, has a long tradition for staging successful shows. Even so it might be a bit unfair to the finns, that I’m reviewing this after seeing the show 12 times in 9 cities, because it’s still a small theater with limited facilities.

With that in mind, I was impressed with what they had done. Some of the sets worked well, especially the scene in the vault, when the stage rises, worked really well and they managed to get the vampires out of their caskets quite nicely without the elevating stage. The library and the entrance to the castle also worked well. Unfortunately the storyline was hurt by the absence of the rotation inn. Rebecca and Magda was way to close to Sarah in that scene instead of the “implied” way in the german version with the candles.

The show is billed as “non replica”, so the caracters are a bit different than the german version. Most noticable is Koukol who is a brute in a long fur coat instead of an ugly hunchback. I could live with that, but he should NOT be singing the first part of “Carpe Noctem” since he’s not a vampire. Chagal is a bit more goofy and the professor is a bit less goofy. I kinda like this more dignified Abronsius, even though his dress at the end was a bit of a distraction. Herbert looked a bit more like a girl and was not quite as “gay” as we’re used to. The performance of Sarah, Magda, Rebecca and Alfred was excellent, while Krolock, even though he did ok, wasn’t in the big Krolock-league. It’s also the first time I’ve experienced that the largest applause was not given to the count.

All in all the show was a very enjoyable experience, but I do have one problem. The musical director has a hell of lot to learn about Jim Steinman. I can understand why the orchestra doesn’t sound as lush a some of the due to the fact that it’s a very small live band backed by recorded music, but I just don’t understand the need to leave out the thunderous hits that’s one of Jim’s trademarks. The first act just don’t close properly without the floor shivering and the professors conclusion before the finale is just not conclusive without the thunder. To put it in Jim’s words, we just never went over the top and that’s a shame.

Even so this trip to Seinajoki is an experience I would not have wanted to be without. Thanks to the team for the show.

Read the whole story here :

http://www.jimsteinman.com/nutcracked.htm

Jim Steinman

Other inductees includes Gordon Lightfoot, Bob Seger, Don Schlitz, Harvey Schmidt & Tom Jones.

Congartulations to Jim.

Jim Steinman with Bonnie Tyler

Earlier this month the finnish version of the musical “tanz der vampire” premiered in Seinäjoen kaupunginteatteri,Seinäjoki to an enthusiastic audience. Both audiences and critics praise the musical and the theater sold 11000 tickets with the first week. Looks like another succesful staging.

http://www.eclipsis.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=226
http://teatterikarpanen.vuodatus.net/blog/3016086/dance-of-the-vampires/
http://ponytales-ponytales.blogspot.com/2011/09/pardon-me-but-your-teeth-are-in-my-neck.html
http://somesuperfluousopinions.blogspot.com/2011/09/dancing-vampires.html

Bonnie Tyler at Korsør Open Air

Bonnie Tyler was born Gaynor Hopkins in Skewen, Wales on June 8th 1951. It’s amazing that this cool lady i s 60 years old today and still rocking on.

Bonnie Tyler & husband Robert Sullivan

Even though I’ve been listening to music since the late 70′s, I wasn’t much of a concert-goer back then, so it’s pretty nice that the old heroes like Bonnie Tyler keeps going, giving me a second chance to experience them live. Yesterday, I got to see her live for the first time when she played at the Open Air festival in Korsør, Danmark along with fellow vintage icons such as Shakin Stevens, Nik Kershaw, Smokie and Nazareth. After listening to the work Bonnie has recorded in recent years I was a bit worried about what Bonnies voice would sound like, but I must say she did allright for a woman only days away from her 60th birthday.

When waiting for Bonnie to arrive I was thinking that “Have you ever seen the rain” would be a good way to open, but that it would be a bit weird because Smokie played it as one of their last songs as the act before. When my premonition turn out to be true I changed my mind because Jim’s arrangement is just so much different than the mushy Smokie version, so it worked out fantastic. Afterwards we got songs like “Hide your heart”, “To love somebody”, “It’s a heartache”, “Lost in france” and “Straight from the heart” and I was still unpatiently waiting for the first steinsong, when she said something like “In 1983 i started working with a sheer genious…..” which of course was the lead in to “Total Eclipse of the heart”. Now it’s a special thing to hear you favorite song in the whole world performed live along with a crowd of singing fans and must admit a had a big lump in my throat. The whole band did a fantastic job with it. I can help wonder how many in the audience that was surprised by hearing the extra 2 verses you normally don’t hear in the radio. While I aboviously expected to hear Bonnies biggest hit live, I was very pleasently surprised to hear “Faster than the speed of night” as the next song, because it was never a big hit and judging from the audiences response to it, you can only wonder why it wasn’t. Bonnie continued to play songs like “river deep, mountain high” and “the best” and somes song I didn’t know. I like that fact that she explained that “The best”  was her song before Tina Turner. I was wondering if she was gonna do “Take me back”, since I believe it was the songwriter Billy Cross I saw backstage, but she didn’t. Instead she finished in great style with “Holdning on for a hero”.  Thanks to Bonnie for one of the best concert experiences ever.

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If you think of great cities of musical theater, the finnish city of Seinäjoki may not be the first one you think of, but the theater Seinäjoen Kaupunginteatteri does hold a prominent place in Finnish theater history. The theater is the setting for the Scandinavian premiere of Roman Polanski and Jim Steinman’s cultmusical Dance of the Vampires. Anna Valtari from the theater have been kind enough to answer a few questions:

NW: “You have an English title. Will the show be in English ?”

AV: “It took a long consideration whether the title should be in Finnish, German or English. All the three titles are used, but the main title is in English. (The Finnish title is Vampyyrien tanssi). Themusical has been translated to Finnish (from German script and libretto) by M.Sc. Marika Hakola and will be performed in Finnish.

NW: “The title brings back memories of the Broadway production. Will this show be more like the European or the American production ?”

AV: “The Finnish production will be more like the European one (and has nothing to do with the Broadway production). Of course our musical will be the greatest vampire musical ever seen, the settings and the costumes are already amazing! The Finnish musical will also be a little bit more rock”

NW: “The city of Seinäjoki seems like an odd place for the Scandinavian premier of the musical. Do you have many big productions there ?”

AV:”Seinäjoki City Theater has a long experience of musicals (Rocky Horror Show directed by Olli-Matti Oinonen, Aspects of Love, Titanic, Sound of Music to mention few). The city might not be that big but our theater is recognised and has the courage to take the challenge. No other theater in Finland, Sweden, Denmark or Norway did!

NW:” Do you usually have international guests in your theater ?”

AV:”We do not have that many international guests because our productions are performed in Finnish. Our theater building though fascinates tourists from all over the world through out the year. Seinäjoki City Theater is work of the internationally known Finnish architect Alvar Aalto. The theater is  part of Aalto Centre, for which Seinäjoki is internationally known (here you’ll find some links: http://www.seinajoki.fi/english/tourism/alvar_aalto_in_seinajoki/).

Thanks to Anna for this info. Sounds like this musical, which opens September 10th, is a must for steinfans.

Practical:

Theater website: http://www.seinajoenkaupunginteatteri.fi/

If you allready looked at a map and thought Seinäjoki was to far of the beaten track, don’t dispair as express trains go directly from the capitol Helsinki to Seinäjoki.They take about 2.5-3.5 hours and cost around €55, so it’s not a good excuse to miss this Scandinavian premiere.