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| Elton John discusses recent "Lestat" revisions Sunday, March 26 2006 |
When the curtain went up on the first Broadway preview of the Anne Rice-inspired musical Lestat March 25, 2006, what was on stage represented lessons the creative team learned from its recent San Francisco tryout.
Composer Elton John, lyricist Bernie Taupin, librettist Linda Woolverton and director Robert Jess Roth, along with Matt West, credited with musical staging, will refine the work further with their cast in the weeks leading to the April 25, 2006 opening night.
As previously reported, choreographer Jonathan Butterell (The Light in the Piazza, Nine, Fiddler on the Roof) has been enlisted to give his perspective on the staging. Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures, making its producing debut on Broadway, brought Butterell onto the project as a little extra insurance that the show would be in shape. (He is not credited in the Playbill.)
The San Francisco company remains intact for Broadway (with some additions), featuring Hugh Panaro as the title vampire (the musical is drawn from Rice's gothic novels under the umbrella "The Vampire Chronicles") and Carolee Carmello (Mamma Mia!, Parade) as Gabrielle, Drew Sarich as Armand, Jim Stanek as Louis, Roderick Hill as Nicolas, Michael Genet as Marius and Allison Fischer as Claudia. Lestat's cast of 16 features Rachel Coloff, Nikki Renee Daniels, Joseph Dellger, Colleen Fitzpatrick, Sean MacLaughlin, Patrick Mellen, Chris Peluso, Dominque Plaisant, Megan Reinking, Sarah Solie, Amy Sparrow, Will Swenson, Steve Wilson and Tommar Wilson.
Lestat reunites the legendary pop songwriting team of Elton John and Bernie Taupin, who are collaborating together on a legit musical for the first time.
Lestat had its world premiere December 17, 2005-January 29, 2006 at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco.
Collaborators Woolverton, West and Roth were on the creative team of Broadway's hit Beauty and the Beast.
Lestat is Elton John's third musical for Broadway following The Lion King and Aida. He also wrote songs for the smash London musical Billy Elliott, which has yet to be announced for a Broadway bow.
The changes to the script and score are "radical," Elton John told Playbill's Harry Haun.
"I just finished writing another two songs for Lestat," John said in February 2006. "One's called 'My Beautiful Boy,' and one's called 'Right Before My Eyes.' Like with Billy Elliott, I wrote an extra song quite late in the day, and we left some songs out. And that's par for the course when you're a composer for a musical. You kinda have to leave your ego at the door and see some songs you really like bite the dust and you have to write some other ones because, in every show, the story changes."
Is the plot different since San Francisco?
"The storyline has certainly changed in Lestat — and it's still changing in Billy Elliott, to be honest with you," Elton said. "That's still going on. We're just trying to sharpen it up and make it better. And I think that's the way a musical has to keep going. Otherwise, you don't keep it fresh, and it becomes stale. But when you're actually working on a musical and it hasn't actually opened yet, you want to get it as good as it can be. You're working on it right up to the eleventh hour. And that's what we'll be doing with Lestat, with the two new songs…"
Elton explained, "'My Beautiful Boy' is done by Lestat's mother, Carolee Carmello, and 'Right Before My Eyes' is done by Lestat, Hugh Panaro."
(The Playbill for the first preview lists "Beautiful Boy" and "Right Before My Eyes" as musical numbers in Act One.)
How has the show changed since San Francisco?
"I think the first act we'll radically change," Elton said. "I think something will change in the second act—the opening in New Orleans will be much more ensemble than it was before. And there are more ensemble pieces being put into the first act. Two new songs. New beginning. New ending. It's quite radically changed. The beginning of Billy Elliott changed about 10 days before the opening of the show. That seems to be the way musicals work. It's an evolutionary process."
Elton isn't writing pop songs for Lestat — it's a more complex process than that.
"Lestat I found to be particularly draining because the songs are much longer, more complex than anything else I've ever written, and I really enjoyed the process of writing Lestat," he said. "They’re much more wordy songs. It's much more serious subject. You're writing about a vampire, and you're writing about a more complex situation than you normally would. Billy Elliott is a '70s pastiche, and it's very straightforward. It's political, but it's very straightforward. Here, you’re writing stuff that's coming from the 19th century and its historical base as well so you've got to get the music. It's 180 degrees away from Billy Elliott. I've never done anything like this before. Never. I think it's my finest piece of work as far as writing for the stage goes."
How is the score different?
"Different because there are no electronic instruments in it," Elton said. "I wanted it to be like that. It's totally organic, in a way. We may have to use a couple of synthesizers to emulate string sounds because the actual score is quite huge—and we just can't afford to have that kind of orchestra on Broadway.
"For me, it's not rock 'n' roll whatsoever. I mean, it changes in the second half, when it goes to New Orleans—and a little New Orleans music creeps in. But, generally, it's totally different from Aida and Billy and Lion King. I don't really see the point of doing something, one after the other, if you're not going to do something different."
On the topic of the two failed vampire shows — Dance of the Vampires and Dracula — that came before Lestat, John told Playbill's Harry Haun, "I didn't see the musicals so I can't judge what they were like, but we did [go] into this, saying there are going to be no dancing vampires and no garlic. We tried to stay about from the cliched version. But you can't be bothered by what everybody else has done. It is a difficult subject matter. We know that's a challenge. The others didn't do very well, but we're just concerned with what we're doing."
For more information, visit www.lestat.com.
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