Dance of the Vampires

An excerpt from the THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE MUSICAL THEATRE by Kurt Ganzl (Published by Schirmer / New York, 2001)

Based on the film screenplay The Fearless Vampire Killers, or Pardon Me But Your Teeth Are in my Neck by Gérard Brach and Roman Polanski. Music by Jim Steinman. Raimundtheater, Vienna 4 October 1997.

The vast success of The Phantom of the Opéra provoked a tidal wave of musicals with twisted (mentally and/or physically), melodramatic heroes ranging from the Dracula, Frankenstein and Mr Hyde of classic literature to a bunch of murderers and lynch-merchants and a usually absolutely straightfaced selection of werewolves, hunchbacks and vampires. It was something of a relief, therefore, to see arrive a musical which treated the genre with a tongue-in-cheek grin, a piece which treated the wicked world of vampiredom with a smile on its face.

The libretto was based on the 1967 spoof horror film The Fearless Vampire Killers in which director/co-author Roman Polanski (Alfred) had starred alongside Sharon Tate (Sarah), Ferdy Mayne (von Krolock) and Jack MacGowran (Ambronsius). Shyly gormless Alfred (Aris Sas) is the 'hero' of the affair. He is assistant to vampire-seeking Professor Ambronsius (Gernot Kranner), and in this story he goes out to Transylvania with his boss on a bloodsucker-hunt. There he meets lovely Sarah (Cornelia Zenz), the inkeeper's daughter, a lass with a fetish for bath-taking, and his mind veers to other things than vampires. But Sarah is captured by the vampirical Count von Krolock (Steve Barton) and carried of to his lairical castle, a suitably spooky place also inhabited by the obligatory Hunchback (Torsten Flach) of such castles, and the count's perilously gay son (Nik). Things come to their peak at the annual Vampire Ball. But finally Alfred rescues Sarah, they embrace at last and ... well, you knew that even all those baths couldn't keep a girl clean in this castle. It's vampire time.

If the story was comical, there were nevertheless moments in it which verged on pure melodrama or the heights of horror-movie, and the score, by rockman Jim Steinman ('Total Eclipse of the Heart') reflected this double edge. There were some ringing numbers for the Vampire ('Gott ist tot', 'Die unstillbare Gier'), including a big-sing duo which, although burlesquing Steinman's big hit song in its title ('Totale finsternis'), burlesqued more particularly the big-sing duos of The Phantom of the Opéra and its kind in its style, some delicately tuneful pieces for Alfred both alone ('Für Sarah') and with Sarah ('Draussen ist Freiheit'), a vocal showpiece for the maid, Magda ('Tot zu sein ist komisch'), a vampire-pop-spectacular-dream-sequence with the delicious title of'Carpe noctem', an Offenbachian patter-song in the pure tradition of the opéra-bouffe for Ambrosius ('Wahrheit'), A Vampire March ('Ewigkeit'), and a final song-and-dirty-dance'Tanz der Vampire', as highlights in a melodiously melodramatic score whose music and lyrics both rang with burlesque brightness.

The tale, the fun, the music and the spectacle all came together in what was undoubtedly the most complete and effective musical to have come out of central Europe in half a century.

Directed by Polanski, with a virtually all-English production team, Tanz der Vampire was immediately established as a hit on its production in Vienna. With the traditional breaks for the hot summer weeks, it has run on to date for 30 months. Germany: Musical Hall, Stuttgart March 31, 2000
Recording: Original Cast (Polygram)