#lyricist: Michael Kunze

[eurovisionsongaday]

Welcome back to Gary Lux! He was a member of Westend in 1983 and did some backing singing in 1984, and now he gets his headline role!

[redfreesias03]

Watashi Dake ni (“Only to Me”)

“My life is the one thing I will not leave in their hands. The life in me I entrust only to me.”

OR: The iconic “I am” song from the musical Elisabeth.

iya yo    otonashii okisaki nante narenai    kawaii ningyou nante anata no mono ja nai no kono watashi wa

I hate it, playing    the demure empress I cannot become    the charming doll I do not belong to you, Not I

hosoi    ROOPU tagutte noboru no SURIRU ni　taete sekai miorosu bouken no tabi ni deru watashi dake

I’ll stretch and tighten this thin rope and climb it Braving the thrill, I will look down at the world below I’ll go out on an adventure, Only me gimu wo oshitsukeraretara dete yuku wa　watashi tsukamaeru to iu no nara tobidashite yuku wa

If you push duties onto me I’ll go out and leave, I. If you tell me you’ll catch me, I’ll fly away. tori no you ni    tokihanatarete hikari mezashi    yozora tobitatsu demo miushinawanai watashi dake wa

Like a bird, when freed I’ll take off in the night sky, aiming for the light But I won’t lose sight of Only me iya yo    hitome ni sarasareru nado hanasu aite    watashi ga erabu dare no mono de mo nai kono watashi wa

I hate it, being scrutinized under people’s eyes I will choose to whom I speak with. I belong to no one, Not I

ari no mama no watashi wa kyuuden ni wa inai dare ni mo sokubaku sarezu jiyuu ni ikiru no

My true self, as I really am, Is not in the palace— Unchained by anyone, It lives free tatoe ouke ni　totsuida mi demo inochi dake wa　azuke wa shinai watashi ga inochi yudaneru sore wa watashi dake ni

Even if this body has married into the royal family, My life is the one thing I will not leave in their hands. The life in me I entrust Only to me watashi ni

To me

[emptymasks]

I’ve seen a lot about your thoughts on Elisabeth and Tanz der Vampire, and they’ve been really helpful getting into those musicals! But you have a huge list of other musicals that people can get into…

So I was wondering if you had any musicals you hadn’t mentioned in a while that you really like or would like to talk about??? (preferably something from your lists that has a blue heart please?)

Oh if only you knew how long the list of European musicals really is... I however have only seen 9 (if I counted right) and I have a lot more that I still need to watch. Oh also, I only put the blue hearts on any musicals that I was providing multiple links for so people could see which version I reccoment the most highly. If a musical only had one link and didn't have a blue heart it doesn't mean I didn't like it.

I've watched: Mozart das Musical, Elisabeth das Musical, Tanz der Vampire, 3 Musketiers, Mozart L'Opéra Rock, Dracula (the Graz production), Rebecca das Musical, Roméo et Juliette and Schikaneder.

If you enjoyed those two you're likely to enjoy Rebecca! It's written by the same composer/lyricist team as Elisabeth and Mozart (and same lyricist as Tanz der Vampire - though if you're listening to any German musical, original or translated, 90% of the time the lyrics will have been done by Michael Kunze that man is everywhere). The Stuttgart production has my favourite set design of any musical! Well... Actually probably. There are so many big set pieces it's insane, way more than I've seen in some Broadway and West End musicals. You can tell so much work went into it and the visual effects that I won't spoil if you don't know the plot but if you know the plot you know what I mean by the effects at the end are so good and I didn't expect them at all and I freaked out so much the first time I watched it. Jan Ammann as Maxim in the Stuttgart production is the best Maxim. No I won't take any argument. Other actors feel a bit one-dimensional to me, but the way Maxim acts at times comes from trauma and some actors and productions seem to forget that, but Jan really goes for it and his Maxim is a lot more sympathetic and I just want to give him a hug. Pia Douwes as Mrs Danvers, if you've seen her in Elisabeth what more do I need to say, she's amazing. A musical goddess. Her Danny is a bit more wild than some, but she kills it. My favourite video, which I put the blue heart next to, has understudy Christina Patten as Ich/I, but I adore her she's my favourite. She adds some spunk to Ich in act 2 and her voice is so pretty and aaaa. I just love these three actors together in these roles.

Roméo et Juliette is another favourite of mine! It's hard to choose which one to recommend, but it has to be the original 2000/2001 production because of the sweetness and chemistry and voices of Damien Sargue and Cecilia Cara as Romeo and Juliet. They're so pretty and work together so well. The only reason I say it's hard to pick is Mercutio. I adore him, but in the original production they cut out a song they had planned for him and he doesn't really do much at all? In the 2010 revival they gave him two more songs and you care about him so much more and John Eyzen plays such a good Mercutio. So I'd recommend the original but if you want to like Mercutio more, which you should he's amazing, I'd recommend watching at least clips of John's. It's an interesting musical because all productions are non-replica and also change around the order of songs, add or take away characters, all sorts. The Hungarian production is also very popular and I'm sure it's great, I just haven't' gotten around to watching it yet.

Mozart das Musical was the first non-English language musicals I watched so I have a fondness for it, but it's not my favourite. However, I do realise I have forgotten most of the songs and the few I've gone back and listened to are better than I remember.

Dracula isn't super popular and I understand why, I don't love the plot of the Dracula/Mina romance in it, however. I do love this musical because despite how I find the plot lacking, the songs are so good! At least, I love them. And the actors are all doing a great job. And it's one of the few Dracula adaptions to keep Quincy Morris so they get bonus points for that.

Mozart L'Opéra Rock and modern French musicals... This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but they're often more like pop-rock operas now. So if you're not into musicals with that style of music it might not be for you, but I still enjoyed it even though I didn't think I would because of the style of music. Mozart and Salieri's chemistry is very good, Salieri's bisexual crisis song is iconic, actually all of Salieri's songs are iconic.

Schikaneder... eh. I didn't like it that much and I didn't really like any of the songs. There's no English subtitles, but someone sent me the entire English synopsis and I watched it with a German friend so I had double the help of understanding it. Doesn't mean others might not like it, just none of the songs stood out to me and I had no desire to listen to any of them again. It's by Steven Scharwz of Wicked fame and I love Wicked, but I didn't love this.

3 Musketiers!! God it's so underrated and not spoken about within the European musical fandom that I even forget about it and literally forgot to write about it earlier in this post. It's a Dutch musical (though did also have a German production) and it's really good!? Faces you might know are Pia Douwes as Milady de Winter, Stanley Burlseon as Cardinal Richeliu (Netherlands Der Tod in Elisabeth), Henk Poort as Athos (Netherlands Phantom and Jean Valjean). The dialgoue is funny, the songs are good, some of the set pieces have no right to exist in this tiny musical?? They made this giant boat and pelt the actors with rain just for one 5 minute song and then we never see the boat again? And while I recommend the Dutch one because Dutch musicals deserve more love and it has official English subtitles!! Official ones, not fanmade! I have the DVD and it comes with English subtitles (and Dutch and German subtitles) which is so nice. The German version is also good, good cast, Pia came back and Uwe Kroger as Richeliu and omg they rearranged the songs and the German arrangement of Nicht Aus Stein is insane and amazing and frankly iconic.

That's all of the ones I have watched. Next on my list to watch are Rudolf and Notre Dame de Paris, both of which I have listened to some songs from and already love (I've listened to way too much of Notre Dame de Paris and am so in love).

I want to start organising streams where I'll host the musical either by getting the video from Youtube or my own files and anyone who wants to join can come along and watch with us, chat with us if you want or just watch there's no pressure to chat. I thought about doing weekly streams? This would also make me finally watch some of the ones I've been meaning to for ages. But I keep wondering about time zones. I'm in the UK and would want to stream at about 11pm at the latest (11pm BST/GMT+1 as we’re in daylight savings at the moment, if the streams continue past the end of October which would be wild then I’ll make a note of the time change that would be to 11pm GMT), which I know can work for other UK and Europeans, but for any Americans would be in the afternoon. So, I wondered if doing it on a weekend would be better? Then it doesn't matter if it's in the afternoon? Maybe Saturday evenings then? It would either be Saturday evenings UK time or Friday evenings UK time. What do you guys think? If people are down then I'll make a separate post with a list of what we'll be watching each week and if anything happens to me that means I can't stream one week then everything will just get pushed back a week, but I don't see that as likely to happen. And I'll only be streaming those that have English subtitles, so don't worry about not being able to understand anything.

edit: am also open to 10pm bst if others want that, im just trying to think of what time works best for everyone so sorry if 11pm is a little late for europeans, i know 10pm could be a little early for americans. also in case it sounded like these are the only musicals i will be streaming, thats not so, ive got more than just the ones mentioned on this list!

(Tagging some people who I know are or might be interested in streams to see what you think of that plan: @sirona-art @ringwraith100 @tanz-der-trash @smilingwoland @the-weird-dane @witchgaye @ami-fidele @kisstheghouls @looking-4-happiness @ladysapphire928 @sloanedestler @tinywound @persephonaae @phoenixdewinter @uwucoffee @freshbloodandgothicism )

[a-love-poet-at-heart]

This English recording of Die Unstillbare Gier sorta fascinates me

this recording came out in 2005, a few years after the broadway production of Dance of the Vampires, and years after the 1999 English demos with Steve Barton. But this version has different lyrics from the official English ones.

One example is that the official version has the same lyrics as the original Meat Loaf song “The skies were pure and the fields were green” but it was changed to “The wheat was golden and the fields were green”

Most glaring change for me would be the section with Napoleon’s page, the original lyrics make it seem that von Krolock could be sexually attracted to him “When I recall his body I can’t help but think/To consume, it was a sin” in the Martin recording “his body” is changed to “his candor” (candor meaning being honest and open) meaning Krolock was mourning the loss of the personality of the page, not his body

Now interestingly from what I can tell for this CD, Steinman was only credited as the writer of the music, not lyrics. Michael Kunze was credited for all the lyrics on the CD. He did write the original German lyrics, but Steinman himself was behind the English Broadway lyrics.

Really interesting that Kunze would be credited as the lyricist for the english lyrics since there is only a few minor changes from it and the Steinman version.

(also of note is that Martin was not involved with Tanz der Vampire till after the Broadway production, meaning this couldn’t have been recorded before it)

Full lyrics to the Martin Version

Full Lyrics to the 99 Demo

[cto10121]

@bathwritersnark replied to your chat post: Ah yes, the case of Tanz der Vampire is an infamous one. One of Europe's biggest hits that, together with Elisabeth and Rebecca, established Austria as one of the leading musical theatre producers. And none of those pieces can reach Broadway without suffering some kind of tragedy. Tanz der Vampire turned to shit, Elisabeth thankfully never reached it there and Rebecca underwent several years of law investigations. Seriously Broadway, come on, you can do better XD

There must be some sort of Voldemort-style curse on recent European musicals because if you think about it, none of the foreign musicals post-Les Misérables that have been translated into English have been successful. Notre Dame de Paris is by far the most successful, relatively speaking, lasting a year and a half and flopped in Vegas, Roméo et Juliette four months, despite the fact that its godawful English translation should have made it run for less, easily the worst translated of the lot. Starmania, which was translated by Tim Rice (lyricist of Jesus Christ Superstar and some of the songs from the Lion King and Aladdin), had a really small modest opening in El Paso, of all places, and then at the Mogador Theater in Paris. Starmania was at least mostly a French/French-Canadian thing, but Notre Dame and RetJ could have been done way better than they were. Kristina fran Duvemala got at least Herbert Kretzmer to translate, and a concert in English, but I read at least one review that panned it; I haven't heard anything more about the English version.

And then, of course, you have the Austrian-German musicals, as you said. Poor Rebecca never reached Broadway and Elisabeth was bizarrely never picked up; it was considered at some point, but the American producers wanted to conflate Death and Lucheni together and other changes and so Michael Kunze (of COURSE) said no. And Broadway Tanz rivals London RetJ for worst adaptation, as far as I know. Now, Mozart L'Opéra Rock is the latest that is going to be adapted for Broadway, but that was years ago, so it’s probably in development hell. If the Curse of the Foreign Musicals holds out, they'd probably mess it up somehow too. If it even gets there. 

[andrewlloydwebber]

okay so i guess the rebecca broadway producers have lost the rights, so it’s officially not coming to broadway.

that makes both attempts to bring an Austrian musical or a musical involving Michael Kunze failures, so I seriously doubt VBW (Austrian producer who I think holds some of the licensing rights) will allow mozart or elisabeth to come to broadway (i don’t think Elisabeth would work on Broadway)

this isn’t really news, just never saw it discussed on here. As for the fate of Schikaneder, it’s not reaaally an Austrian musical, considering the composer/lyricist is American and most of the creative team is British or American, so if it did transfer it wouldn’t need huge revisions (like the Dance of the Vampires producers thought it did). I don’t think it would do well on Broadway without Hugh Jackman in the lead though

[eurovisionsongaday]

More than ten years later, we get another visit from Mary Roos! In a dress I really waaaaaaant.

[eurovisionsongaday]

Another important debut came in 1974: this is Ralph Siegel’s first entry as a composer!