LESTAT, the musical

May 2024 · 14 minute read

December 17th (in ten days time) marks the fifteenth anniversary of the premiere (Off-Broadway). As a fan of the early Anne Rice vampire books and the film adaptation of INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE, I came away disappointed that the narrative lacked any passion and the characters seemed so bloodless (hah). Where was the gothic intensity, the raw depth, and the homoerotic romance? The musical dialogue was all so didactic, airy and dry, like a satanic catechism. As someone new to musical theatre with limited knowledge of song-writing, I can't pinpoint exactly how it is so awful musically - I only know instinctively that it is, and that most of the songs do not catch or please the ear (I only like 'Embrace It', 'I'll Never Have That Chance', and 'After All This Time'). How did the dream team of Elton/Bernie manage to fail so miserably? The book and staging have been altered several times since the first performance, but these changes have not improved the standing of the show.

Could this adaptation have been done successfully? If so, how? Who or what is most to blame for the flopulous 2005-6 show?

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by Anonymousreply 34December 24, 2020 11:11 AM

I remember marveling at how committed Carolee Carmello's performance was in the middle of that piece of shit. It was almost touching how she threw herself into it, heart and soul. But the show was beyond saving. Bad book, bad music, stunningly bad lyrics, amateurish production.

I never thought I’d see anything like it again until I saw Carmello, of all people, in that awful Kathie Lee Gifford musical. That poor woman; she either only gets offered the dregs or she has rotten taste in musicals.

by Anonymousreply 1December 6, 2020 2:28 AM

Elton John says he wrote the score in two weeks, handed it over and never looked back. If the composer has so little interest, is it a surprise when it flops?

by Anonymousreply 2December 6, 2020 2:34 AM

R2 wonder why that was?

You'd think a story about beautiful immortal young men, saturated in homoerotic tension & subtext, and dripping in 17th Century regalia would somewhat appeal to a flamboyant eldergay man who writes ballads for a living....

by Anonymousreply 3December 6, 2020 2:50 AM

The best moment is unintentionally hilarious, when Armand throws Lestat off the roof. Gets me every time lmao.

by Anonymousreply 4December 6, 2020 2:52 AM

Is there a scene with Marius sucking off human Armand in Venice? That was the hottest part of the vamp chronicles for me.

by Anonymousreply 5December 6, 2020 3:07 AM

Was Hugh Panaro completely Out when he originated Lestat? Wondering if his sexuality had anything to do with his casting...

And WHET him, anyway? I haven’t heard a word about the man in a decade.

by Anonymousreply 6December 6, 2020 5:52 PM

R1 Jill, at Monkeys & Playbills podcast, calls Carmello’s big Act One number ‘Make Me As You Are’ a poor man’s ‘I Dreamed A Dream’, and she’s right. Jill also calls the show “sad, boring, and unfinished”.

R2 Elton seemed to be writing LESTAT in the spare minutes he had on weekends, while focusing on working to finish BILLY ELLIOT. He wrote them in the same year.

Lestat is not a likeable protagonist in any sense, or even an antihero. Trying to make him very sympathetic was a huge part of the problem with the show. If he’d have met a sticky end, or ended up defeated by curtain, it might have felt better.

by Anonymousreply 7December 6, 2020 6:40 PM

[quote]Elton seemed to be writing LESTAT in the spare minutes he had on weekends, while focusing on working to finish BILLY ELLIOT. He wrote them in the same year.

I didn't make that up, that he wrote it in two weeks and walked away. he said out loud to The Times like it was something to be proud of.....

[quote] A few words about those numbers, and about the rest of Elton John's score, his first with longtime lyricist Bernie Taupin: Sir Elton recently boasted to The New York Times that he wrote it in two weeks, and it sounds like it.

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by Anonymousreply 8December 6, 2020 8:56 PM

Elton finally had to update after it flopped in pre-try out

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by Anonymousreply 9December 6, 2020 8:59 PM

IMO Elton John should have scored TANZ DER VAMPIRES, and Jim Steinman should have scored LESTAT. Elton/Taupin wanted to do a straight-ahead classic musical with elements of comedy, which would have worked perfectly for TANZ; Steinman's ouevre has always tended toward melodramatic, romantic pop/rock opera, however, which would have better suited LESTAT (like, imagine a song similar to 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' or 'I Would Do Anything For Love' performed by two male vampires? Wow).

It makes more sense that way around. Then maybe neither show would have been such a colossal disaster.

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by Anonymousreply 10December 9, 2020 12:45 PM

As I recall, the reason that Elton John did the show in two weeks and never looked back was that he had a new boytoy he was focusing his attention on and could not be bothered with the musical.

I was also impressed with the performance of Roderick Hill, who was a classically trained actor rather than a musical theater "pretty boy".

by Anonymousreply 11December 9, 2020 12:55 PM

I saw all three Broadway vampire musicals: Dance Of The Vampires, Frank Wildhorn's Dracula and Lestat.

DotV was easily the most watchable of the three; one of those jaw-dropping, so-bad-it's-good kind of things. I mean, how often do you get to see Michael Crawford (clearly wearing a girdle), belting out "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" with a bad Italian accent? Sadly, by the time it officially opened, the creative team chickened out and cut most of the truly outrageous stuff, leaving behind a sad, neutered remnant of the once gloriously awful original.

Dracula was meh at best, but at least we got to see Kelli O'Hara and Melissa Errico's breasts. God knows why. And there was, I must admit, some terrific theatrical magic, including a heart-stopping exit for Tom Hewitt at one point.

Lestat was the worst and dullest of the lot. There wasn’t one person on the team with any real musical theatre chops and it showed. Amateur hour. I agree with the poster upthread who suggested the need for a heightened, maybe even campy opera.

by Anonymousreply 12December 9, 2020 1:29 PM

Not enough was made of the gay content, or even of the erotic content in general, beyond that mother-son kiss that loses half the audience. By way of a bite, Panaro's Lestat would just grab people and throw them on the floor while tucking his face into their neck, no sensual build-up or tantalising foreplay.

That's the early-mid noughties for you, though. Maybe if it had been first staged ten years later, then we could have had some chest-heaving and sweat-inducing homoerotic moments. Even more hand contact and more steamy lyrics would have helped.

I get hotter under the collar watching the character Death take his victims in ELISABETH, and that's supposed be cold more than hot....

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by Anonymousreply 13December 9, 2020 1:54 PM

Also, as a smaller note, not enough of Lestat's campy over-the-top humour from both the books and the movies made it into the show. Half the fun of INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE is Lestat dancing into rooms, gesticulating wildly, throwing things at people (or throwing people), singing at random, overreacting to very mundane things with histrionic bitchfits, etc.

Again, it's so weird that Il Divo in Elton John couldn't or didn't want to connect with Lestat the Count of Extra. He just didn't care. Oh well, hope the twink was worth it.

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by Anonymousreply 14December 9, 2020 1:56 PM

It’s a baroque period piece...but we had projections, tacky FX, and a Brechtian set....no ensemble.... undetectable or oversimplified choreo and confusing blocking....barely-there direction...

John/Taupin were also sorely needed on-site during the Off-Broadway run, to make score changes that were less derivative and bombastic. With a show that needed this much reworking and attention, it wasn’t enough to just alter the book, orchestration or staging. There was no finale song, for crying out loud (just an offstage choral line with spoken word over it...?)

The show was exhausted and mired in the endless workshops of development Hell - it should have been put on its feet much earlier, with the core creators focused on helping it to walk then run. Perspective and energy ran out before it had a dress rehearsal (AIDA, I’m looking at you....)

Some have said in the past that internet bootleg downloads ruined the gate sales, but that seems cheap and easy scapegoating to me. The front end promo was essentially lacklustre, as I recall.

It should have closed out of town after a month, then returned years later with a total better revamp (not the one we got).

Comment from Elyse Sommer, 2006:

[quote] Suggestion for an alternate title: Around the World in Three Hundred Endless Years. Hats off to Carolee Carmello and Hugh Panaro for living up to the show must go on motto -- even when it means lending their vocal talents to Elton John and Bernie Taupin's bland and banal as Muzak arias. Audiences who, like the show's never aging Little Orphan Claudia, "want more" would be well-advised to curl up with a Bela Lugosi video.

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by Anonymousreply 15December 10, 2020 1:06 PM

[quote] I saw all three Broadway vampire musicals: Dance Of The Vampires, Frank Wildhorn's Dracula and Lestat.

R12 fucking hell, did you see them all in the same year? They came out roughly around the same time, didn't they?

I don't think there's enough brain-bleach in the world to erase the image of Michael Crawford in a girdle. My sympathies.

by Anonymousreply 16December 10, 2020 9:07 PM

It was the ending that killed it for me.

Lestat goes through all his travels, all his angst, all that murderous incestualinsanity with his family, then finally after centuries of wandering his old teacher finally agrees to take him to meet the Vampire equivalent of Zeus & Hera. Lestat absorbs the impact for a minute, walks up to their throne, kisses Akasha, then just like that he kind of shrugs and drops all his existential concern, and returns to typing out his memoirs. This happens in the last five minutes, and has no emotional payoff whatsoever. It’s hard enough connecting to immortals and Gods as characters regardless, but when it’s in scenes like this there is no hope of making a dramatic impact.

But admittedly it happens that way in the books and movies, too. Lestat is all, “guess I’ll be a rockstar now”.

by Anonymousreply 17December 13, 2020 10:39 AM

Every song in it is 'The Song in Every Musical that No-one Likes'.

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by Anonymousreply 18December 14, 2020 9:40 PM

Just thinking about the fair use and copyright notices is giving me anxiety. Presumably it was necessary to get permission from Rice herself, Penguin Random House, and also from Geffen Pictures and Steven Woolley. All for nothing, apparently. Then again, I guess the WB produced it anyways, so they wrapped up any legal wrangling tout de suite with a nice bow.

And I’d be interested to know to whom the lion’s share of the embarrassing credits and paltry compensation legally went.

by Anonymousreply 20December 22, 2020 2:14 PM

"Garlic! Garlic! Garlic keeps us young! Garlic! Garlic! That's why we're well hung!"

I guess that's why Garlic is such an odd thing.

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by Anonymousreply 21December 22, 2020 2:36 PM

^^TANZ DER VAMPIRE is an entertaining show in anything but English. For some odd reason, it simply hasn't ever flourished with a book translated into English.

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by Anonymousreply 22December 22, 2020 10:52 PM

R22, the book wasn't translated into English. Dance of the Vampires is a completely different musical from Tanz der Vampire. Because Polanski could not come to the USA, they hired the creative team from Urinetown, who had no respect for the original material.

by Anonymousreply 23December 22, 2020 11:30 PM

I listened to some of the songs on Youtube....Totally forgettable.

by Anonymousreply 24December 22, 2020 11:44 PM

Carolee tries hard to sell this one

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by Anonymousreply 25December 23, 2020 12:29 AM

I've seen Carolee in so many shows over the years, from "On the 20th Century" in L.A. to "Kiss Me Kate", "Sister Act", "Scandalous", "Finding Neverland" and "Tuck Everlasting" in NY. She has a great reputation and always gets great reviews, even having three Tony Nominations, but that big hit original role hasn't materialized. I have a bootleg of "Lestat" which I'll get around to one day.

by Anonymousreply 26December 23, 2020 3:10 AM

Jim Steinman was engaged by Polanski quite late in the process to create a score for Tanz Der Vampire, so he plugged in a bunch of old material that basically fit the vibe and then wrote more as was needed. And it worked. Michael Kunze of course translated it all and was responsible for the lyrics and book in German. Subsequently, Steinman added more material (most notably “Braver Than We Are”) as the European productions played out and when an English version was in the offing he of course authored it all himself, with half a dozen new songs. Steinman’s score has never been a problem, but the directorial choices surely have (as well as the collective vision if it wasn’t Polanski, who wrote the story/screenplay in the first place so is elemental to it all).

by Anonymousreply 27December 23, 2020 11:29 AM

R27, the European version was a slapstick silent movie by intention. The US team showed their scorn for Tanz before rehearsals stared in the USA. They made it clear that they were going to show those Germans how to do musicals correctly. So, they complained about people being hit over the head with sausages and a replaced it with jokes about a penis shaped sponge of holy water. The script was largely changed for Dance. It had to be with the bloated Michael Crawford as the lead. However, it did not help that Crawford rewrote the role of the Count to be a comic role because he did not want to be compared his performance in Phantom. (total control of the Count von Krolock character was part of his contract.) Also, Steinman was fired from form the production by his own manager, because he objected to the changes in the material.

by Anonymousreply 28December 23, 2020 11:46 AM

In all fairness, Tanz would never have worked on Broadway in its original form. The form and humor were just soooo European. They were probably correct in thinking it needed an overhaul. A smart producer would have just passed on trying it at all.

by Anonymousreply 29December 23, 2020 12:59 PM

R29, Hmm, a show that has been successful all over the world in its original form would not be a success in the USA? I don't think so, particularly since many of the lyrics were originally in English.

The biggest pitfall with bringing over European musicals is the translation of the lyrics. Rebecca would do fine in the USA if the lyrics could be translated accurately. Unfortunately , there is a huge difference between the original German lyric "She does not surrender" and the English lyric "she is invincible". The English lyric makes the character of Rebecca sound like a frigg'n superhero. The European lyric is more complex. I am actually happy that Rebecca did not come to the USA. They were making really stupid changes.

Of course on the other hand, "defying gravity" in German is "free and weightless".

by Anonymousreply 30December 23, 2020 1:09 PM

Even though the show was based on Polanski's comedy "The Fearless Vampire Killers" the creators of Tanz had humor but focused on the creepy tension of the Vampires were Dance was all farce and didn't work.

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by Anonymousreply 31December 23, 2020 10:17 PM

Maybe they're flops because there's no reason why vampires should sing? In emotional terms they're basically human lampreys.

by Anonymousreply 32December 23, 2020 10:22 PM

Lestat was directed by Rob Roth. That's all you need to know.

by Anonymousreply 33December 23, 2020 10:28 PM

R33 he really never returned to Broadway again after LESTAT.

Still, hard to believe he was only 27 when he directed BEAUTY & THE BEAST. I’m 27 now, and I can’t imagine handling that level of pressure out of the gate. He was even a nominee for Best Director. So what happened to change his career trajectory? Was BATB a fluke, or did Roth just choke because he was young and inexperienced? Or did LESTAT collapse because Roth lacked the support of a major Corp like D!sney?

by Anonymousreply 34December 24, 2020 11:11 AM

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