Hi folks,
It's time to play bad news, good news.

The bad news... musicalzentrale.de just posted a news article stating that the German-language premiere of Rudolf in Vienna might be delayed by four months. It has been previously rumored that the show would be the first production at the Ronacher Theatre when it reopens in October 2007 after renovations. Those renovations have been delayed by "a law case with an adjoining building owner" - and the new completion date and projection for the production is February 2008. Note that all of this is still conjecture. As it's also some time away, there may be other plans or changes announced between now and then.

If you want to read the article, here's a link (in German):
http://musicalzentrale.de/index.php?servic...=2&details=1875
To translate it:
http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en

The good news... I've just posted a songlist for the Hungarian production on Frank's website. There are some interesting titles...
http://FrankWildhorn.com/projects/rudolf/songs.shtml

Best,
Peter

Thanks for that. I was about to PM you about a songlist. I still need one for Svengali, btw. and then the song-list page at my site is complete... FOR NOW :D

I'm surprised there's so many... :blink:

But shame about the delay on "Rudolf". I hope something great happens to Frank between now and then, i.e. "Cyrano" in London, "Frankenstein"...

2008 is such a long time to wait

Got the songlist, thank you, and it's now up at the site. But some part of me feels I've only touched the tip of the iceberg :blink:

Frank's probably written over thousands of songs

EDIT: There are a few titles, from Rudolf, I recognize. "Only Love" is the most obvious, which was in "The Scarlet Pimpernel".

Is "I Was Born to Love You" the same as the Dracula song? And I'm sure I recognize "An Ordinary Man" as well

"I Was Born to Love You" is a different song from the one in Dracula. (What is it about Dracula, that attracts song titles that parallel something else?)

"Ordinary Man" was performed by Rob Evan at the Frank Wildhorn & Friends concert last fall. Come to think of it, Kate Shindle sang "I Was Born To Love You" at the same concert.

Hello!
Well, I was just searching for Jekyll&Hyde and now I'm really happy to find this website! I like Wildhorn's musicals, but unfortunately I don't know all of them. I'm from Hungary so maybe I can help you, if you want some info about the Hungarian "Rudolf" performance.
Bye, Timea

Not to wallow in "promotion", but here are some EXCELLENT sites that have a LOT of info about Frank:

www.frankwildhorn.com
www.freewebs.com/frankwildhorn

Have you seen "Rudolf"?

Thanks for the links, I'll go and see them :)
And yes, I've already seen Rudolf.

What did you think of it?

Hello!
I love its music, especially the duets (Larisch&Taaffe, Mary&Taaffe)! But the way how the story was written is a bit strange to me.

A quick update - I've just added the character names for who sings each song, on the song list

Enjoy

Hi Peter,

I just did a 3 part interview with Frank/Jeremy/Rob Evan for BWW. I posted some photos that I copied from Frank's site under the "Rudolph" section but need names of the couple in Rudolph. ( the photo is male/female sitting in theater seats wearing Rudolph shirts. I assume they are the leads). Any help would be appreciated. please e-mail me at pbspotlight@yahoo.com

Thanks a bunch,
Pati b

Hi, "Rudolf" won't be the first production at the Ronacher. It will be staged at the Raimund Theater after "Rebecca", the new Musical by Levay/Kunze. This is what Kathi Zechner told the press. You find an interview with her in the magazine "musicals" (August/September issue)

all the best,
Martin
www.kultur-channel.at

And do you know when it will be staged at the Raimund?

Bad news from the Hungarian production...After two years on stage, the Operettszínház in Budapest won't be presenting RUDOLF next season.
Apparently, the show isn't selling that well anymore and so they decided to replace it. Probably will leave to give place to the Hungarian premiere of REBECCA.

However since the shows in Hungary run in a weird way, the show may return sometime. However not next season. =\

I heard nothing about the Hungarian Cast CD, though by this time, I'm doubting it will come out, which is a shame 'cause the Hungarian orchestrations, orchestra and some singers (specially Homonnay's Taffee) are far better than the Vienna ones... but well, lets keep faith. =)

Thanks for posting about this. I hadn't heard it yet, but I'm not too surprised. They've been performing it in repertory this year, and the rate of performances has been dropping, slowly but surely. We'll have to keep an eye on it to see if there's anything else down the road.

According to a comment I saw on YouTube from a guy whos grandmother apparently works in the Theater the show already closed. The Operettszínház site doesn't have future shows marked. So if that's true, the show left on May 12th.

I hope they eventually produce the show in Germany, but due to the current apparent low sucess in Vienna (friends who attended reported that the theater is normaly 1 third empty :( ) it will happen soon. Perhaps a return to Japan next year?

By the way, Vienna dates:

the show closes on July 4th and re-opens on September 6th.

The last dates I saw for the show in Budapest were 12 and 13 May. I've been watching their site pretty closely, and they've been good about updates, so I think I have the full set of dates that the show played (posted in the Calendar section of Frank's site, if anyone wants to find them).

I wouldn't be surprised if the show returned in Japan (same with Cyrano), since they tend to repeat their productions.

I do have those Vienna dates noted down as well.

We'll have to watch and see what happens next.

I hear what happens next is they are putting changes into the Vienna production before July 4th. Is this because of the low audiences or for the German producers? Does anyone know if new songs are going into the show now?

I haven't heard that but the Vienna production could indeed use some changes mainly script wise. Also...re-intruducing Késtég és Ábrand would be nice... but I haven't heard nothing about that.
I'll try to find out more. ;)

Do any of the upcoming changes have anything to do with Phoebe Hwang's involvement? Just asking, because her credit and video from the "Wonderland" website seems to have disappeared.

The Programm of the Vienna production credits as follows:

Frank Wildhorn - music
Jack Murphy - book & Lyrics
Nan Knighton - additional lyrics

Story by Frank Wildhorn & Phoebe Hwang
Concept by Frank Wildhorn & Steve Cuden
________

So...who did the story after all? Jack or Phoebe? Or did Jack made the original who played in Budapest and Phoebe the Vienna changes?

I found reports from people who have seen the show yesterday that changes are already in progress. So far, most of them affect the first part, and no new songs were re-introduced.

Can you find out exactly what was changed?

(The 1st act was unanimously the one with most problems according to all the people I know who saw the show)

As far as I can evaluate only trivia: People appearing from the right hand side instead of the left, scene 11 (The ice-skating club) was completed by a huge full moon above Rudolf & Mary (very romantic), the dialog at the beginning of the last scene of act I (In the Prater, Only Love) is changed, and much more. There are several reports of members of the audience portraying their impressions.

Could you point them out please ? :)

I'm pretty sure that Frank and Phoebe worked on the story earlier on in the development of the show (before any of the stage productions), which is why we see that credit now.

I'm not sure exactly who is involved in the more recent changes (from Budapest to Tokyo to Vienna), or how involved people are. It's tough to tell these things from the outside... but I'm sure the changes need approval by at least Frank and Jack. Phoebe might be involved somehow, or she might not. The directors and others from the productions might be involved as well. It's all a collaborative process.

I understand that the changes taking place now in Vienna will be mostly small things to streamline the show. I doubt we'll see any songs added or cut. I'm interested in hearing any of these reports on what gets changed, though.

A description of the changes can be found at http://www.kultur-channel.at/

Thanks! But I have to agree with the article...so far those changes are minor and make no sence and definitly don't work in favour of the story. I mean...how about deepning more the characters instead of shortening "Pretty War" and "finish what you've started"? Just an ideia :P

By the way "“Ein hübscher Krieg” wurde gekürzt? Warum? Warum hat man nicht lieber eine Übersetzung nachgeliefert, die singbar ist." ("Pretty War" was shortened? Why? Why couldn't instead a singable translation be done?)

I totally agree. The song is already very fast and with that text is unsingable. Just like "Kunst ist Schliesslich alt"... :rolleyes:

Well, as VBW has announced today recordings for the DVD production will already be made next week, I assume we cannot expect major changes.

I don't expect them to make the changes for the DVD but for the sake of the show itself.
For the DVD I just hope the system that "fixed" Uwe on the CD works even better with the DVD :lol:

Really good joke. But I prefer a realistic recording instead of a PIXAR production.

I have just heard they have eliminated "Kann ich einfach gehn?" ("Can I Say Goodbye") and "Ich schütz den Staat" ("Maintain The State") from Act II in the Friday performance.

Ok...now it's getting ridiculous.
I mean, I understand cuting "Can I Say Goodbye", the song is just a boring lovish song that adds nothing to the story but "Maintain The State" is a very good song who actually adds something to the story.
Unless they plann to put new songs, I think they shouldn't be allowed to make more changes if this is what they are doing... :angry:

Does Frank even know that this is happening??? :o

Well, I think we should really wait until they have implemented all changes. It seems they have replaced "Can I Say Goodbye" by a reprise of "Something More", but nobody understands the cutting of "Maintain The State" because it reduces the part of Franz Joseph to an underpart.
There are still rumors that they want to compress the show for the DVD production.
Let's hope that they will not produce a "Highlight"-DVD.

Honestly...the 1st version runed for about 2 hours...the normal time of a show.
Elisabeth runs for more than that and they didn't had to shorten it.
But if they want to shorten, giving more energy to the songs and less blanc compasses in the dialog would probably work much better than senseless cuts... :rolleyes:

I wonder if they will even bother to put subtitles for all those who can't speak german or not...

As far as I know ELISABETH is the last show DVD by VBW. Does this one offer subtitles? As far as I remember there are no extras available.

The original DVD release of Elisabeth doesn't contain subtitles nor extras.

The DeLuxe 3DVD edition has extras with subtitles in english, german and japanese. The show is still without subtitles though...

Exactly, this funny DVD which has to be turned around after Act I was meant.

The 3 DVD edition was just rip-off, at least in my opinion. If they intend to produce some extra stuff, okay, but they should sell this directly, they should not exploit the fans.

I think they might because the authors of "Elisabeth" are German but Frank and Jack are American and, as far as I know, they may want to explore the show in the English language and present the DVD to producers?

I think the situation is quite different: When they produced the Elisabeth DVD, it was already clear they finally have to leave the Theater an der Wien, and there will no longer musicals be performed in this auditorium. That's a pity, but it was a political decision. So the DVD was cleary a documentation of this Elisabeth production performed in the Theater an der Wien. Furthermore, VBW has decided to finally terminate Elisabeth performances in Vienna.
But for the Rudolf DVD, if they just want to present it to producers in the Anglo-American language area, they can just put cameras into the auditorium and record the show, without ever publishing a DVD. So, at least for me it's not clear why they produce the DVD right now, combined with all the changes they are actually implementing. This is the task of try-outs or pre-views.