I'm sorry to have taken so long to reply to this. We spent an epic summer sailing round the Baltic (though not the Russian bits) and so my online presence was intermittent. But we're back now (Flush toilets! Huge bed!).
It is just typical of fandom to get all het-up over consent in Alfred/Herbert and ignore Magda's canonical repeated rape. Bollocks to them, I say.
The Swiss production sounds both fascinating and as if it has missed the whole point - if you are not sending up the whole Gothick vampire tradition a la Carpe Jugulum, then what exactly are you doing? But I shall reserve judgment until you have seen it.
You're probably right about Polanski and creative control, although the puff he wrote for this year's anniversary production suggested to my - possibly over-sensitive - translator's ear that he was completely uninterested in the musical (except, presumably, as a source of cash). And certainly he is aesthetically on a different planet from the VBW (the other musical I did for them was, amazingly, even MORE dire than I had anticipated). So my guess is that he took no interest in the production details, though of course I could be totally wrong. But if I were him I would have objected to hand-rubbing Chagal.
As for "Sei bereit", I was happily under orders not to tinker with the meaning in order to make the lines rhyme or scan, so I went with "Get ready". The person I deal with at the VBW suggested "Be prepared", which would scan, but I scotched that on the grounds that it made the vampires sound like a bunch of Boy Scouts. "Get ready" is not a poetically satisfying translation, but it is what the line means.
(Now back from holiday myself!) I wondered if you'd managed to get much sailing in this summer. A Baltic voyage sounds epic indeed, though I can understand skipping the Russian bits. I can just imagine the paperwork required...
Anyway, I can report that the Swiss Tanz der Vampire was excellent. It is less visually gothic/mysterious with the updated setting, but I was pleased with how coherent the whole thing was. They'd evidently put a lot of thought into what they were doing, and thought about the impact. At some point I shall manage a complete review for LJ, but in the meantime Chagal was one of the big wins for me. The actor who was supposed to be playing him was ill, so the director took it on and he was excellent. The whole set-up was more explicit in the locals' awareness of what was in the big castle next door, which made Chagal into a more serious character. Of course, there was still comedy, but you got a real sense of the dread he was living in about Sarah and the vampires, and then his fears coming true. No hand-rubbing required, and I'd like to think that some of the other productions will learn from it. The Act 1 ballet choreography also was different, and instead of it being "Sarah's fantasy of a romantic vampire ball" it was represented as a struggle between Chagal and the Count over her, which of course the former loses, and then afterwards we see him in "Gebet" with his hand over his face in despair. Costume, ordinary suit with skull-cap. Second act, same suit plus the standard leather coat of stage evil. I'm not sure anything can really redeem "Geil zu sein ist komisch", though I liked Magda overall. Again, an updated setting gave a bit more room for her character to be active.
I have the same Boy Scout problem with "Be Prepared" (not a direction I feel any production needs to go in), so "Get ready" seems a good idea for your purposes.
(I'd actually seen both Fiddler on the Roof and Jesus Christ Superstar in August, so representing Jewish characters on stage seems to have been my summer musical theme. Fiddler had just copied the film for costuming - but JCS was more imaginative, helped by avoiding pitfall no. 1: no blond ringlets for Jesus.)
I'm so pleased to hear the production was excellent! I especially like the idea of Chagal's dread being taken seriously (and of course if vampires=capitalism, which is definitely the implication of the final song, then the struggle over "souls" becomes more meaningful - a soul isn't a relic of an outmoded belief system, it's a conscience and it has a function). Actually, it occurred to me after you first mentioned the Swiss production that what I really want to see is a production that takes Abronsius seriously, as a scientist fighting ignorance and irrationality but ultimately tripped up by his own hubris.
The film of Jesus Christ Superstar features a Jesus who looks like so like David Soul that for years I just assumed it was him. I suppose it's an "If the triangles had a god, he would have three sides" sort of thing.
How was the rest of your holiday? The weather didn't seem to be as bad as had been predicted, at least at this end of the country.
A production that focused seriously on Abronsius could be really interesting. The film parallels him more with Krolock than the musical does (though they could always reinsert that speech about their similarities!), but I think that you could still do a fair amount with what's there. Swiss Abronsius was younger and more energetic than usual, but still definitely on the comic side.
The rest of my holiday was great and I managed some very good walking. It had struck me that in winter the ski forecasts a few days out always promise more snow and colder weather than actually arrives, and that if this held true in summer as well I should be fine, which turned out to be more or less what happened. It was definitely early autumn, though, no glorious late summer flowering.
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It is just typical of fandom to get all het-up over consent in Alfred/Herbert and ignore Magda's canonical repeated rape. Bollocks to them, I say.
The Swiss production sounds both fascinating and as if it has missed the whole point - if you are not sending up the whole Gothick vampire tradition a la Carpe Jugulum, then what exactly are you doing? But I shall reserve judgment until you have seen it.
You're probably right about Polanski and creative control, although the puff he wrote for this year's anniversary production suggested to my - possibly over-sensitive - translator's ear that he was completely uninterested in the musical (except, presumably, as a source of cash). And certainly he is aesthetically on a different planet from the VBW (the other musical I did for them was, amazingly, even MORE dire than I had anticipated). So my guess is that he took no interest in the production details, though of course I could be totally wrong. But if I were him I would have objected to hand-rubbing Chagal.
As for "Sei bereit", I was happily under orders not to tinker with the meaning in order to make the lines rhyme or scan, so I went with "Get ready". The person I deal with at the VBW suggested "Be prepared", which would scan, but I scotched that on the grounds that it made the vampires sound like a bunch of Boy Scouts. "Get ready" is not a poetically satisfying translation, but it is what the line means.
(no subject)
Anyway, I can report that the Swiss Tanz der Vampire was excellent. It is less visually gothic/mysterious with the updated setting, but I was pleased with how coherent the whole thing was. They'd evidently put a lot of thought into what they were doing, and thought about the impact. At some point I shall manage a complete review for LJ, but in the meantime Chagal was one of the big wins for me. The actor who was supposed to be playing him was ill, so the director took it on and he was excellent. The whole set-up was more explicit in the locals' awareness of what was in the big castle next door, which made Chagal into a more serious character. Of course, there was still comedy, but you got a real sense of the dread he was living in about Sarah and the vampires, and then his fears coming true. No hand-rubbing required, and I'd like to think that some of the other productions will learn from it. The Act 1 ballet choreography also was different, and instead of it being "Sarah's fantasy of a romantic vampire ball" it was represented as a struggle between Chagal and the Count over her, which of course the former loses, and then afterwards we see him in "Gebet" with his hand over his face in despair. Costume, ordinary suit with skull-cap. Second act, same suit plus the standard leather coat of stage evil. I'm not sure anything can really redeem "Geil zu sein ist komisch", though I liked Magda overall. Again, an updated setting gave a bit more room for her character to be active.
I have the same Boy Scout problem with "Be Prepared" (not a direction I feel any production needs to go in), so "Get ready" seems a good idea for your purposes.
(I'd actually seen both Fiddler on the Roof and Jesus Christ Superstar in August, so representing Jewish characters on stage seems to have been my summer musical theme. Fiddler had just copied the film for costuming - but JCS was more imaginative, helped by avoiding pitfall no. 1: no blond ringlets for Jesus.)
(no subject)
The film of Jesus Christ Superstar features a Jesus who looks like so like David Soul that for years I just assumed it was him. I suppose it's an "If the triangles had a god, he would have three sides" sort of thing.
How was the rest of your holiday? The weather didn't seem to be as bad as had been predicted, at least at this end of the country.
(no subject)
The rest of my holiday was great and I managed some very good walking. It had struck me that in winter the ski forecasts a few days out always promise more snow and colder weather than actually arrives, and that if this held true in summer as well I should be fine, which turned out to be more or less what happened. It was definitely early autumn, though, no glorious late summer flowering.