Polanski musical 'Dance of the Vampires' opens in Paris
- 10 years ago
Nearly half a century after co-starring in ‘The Fearless Vampire Killers’ alongside fiancee Sharon Tate, director Roman Polanski is adapting the musical version of his film for the Paris stage
First performed in 1997 in Vienna, ‘Dance of the Vampires’ has since traveled the world.
Eighty-one-year old Polanski hopes this French adaptation will boost Paris’ dreary musical theatre scene: “Vampires are becoming popular in last few years, but also the musical, somehow the musical started functioning in France. And now we have a lot of them. In the period when we wanted to bring it here there were few companies that tried to stage musicals and they were total disasters,” he says.
The musical was originally written in German by world-renowned lyricist Michael Kunze and features music by US composer and Grammy-award winning producer Jim Steinman. Polanski himself says the translation into French was a rather tricky affair: “I was a bit afraid of France because the French language does not translate well… English is good for singing, German, French not so much… but when I saw the first text in French, I realised that it is possible here… And we’ll see.”
Polanski hopes his musical, which flopped on Broadway, will meet the same success in France as it did in central Europe.
‘Dance of the Vampires’ is on now at Paris’ Mogador theatre.
First performed in 1997 in Vienna, ‘Dance of the Vampires’ has since traveled the world.
Eighty-one-year old Polanski hopes this French adaptation will boost Paris’ dreary musical theatre scene: “Vampires are becoming popular in last few years, but also the musical, somehow the musical started functioning in France. And now we have a lot of them. In the period when we wanted to bring it here there were few companies that tried to stage musicals and they were total disasters,” he says.
The musical was originally written in German by world-renowned lyricist Michael Kunze and features music by US composer and Grammy-award winning producer Jim Steinman. Polanski himself says the translation into French was a rather tricky affair: “I was a bit afraid of France because the French language does not translate well… English is good for singing, German, French not so much… but when I saw the first text in French, I realised that it is possible here… And we’ll see.”
Polanski hopes his musical, which flopped on Broadway, will meet the same success in France as it did in central Europe.
‘Dance of the Vampires’ is on now at Paris’ Mogador theatre.