The choice of fabric is eccentric, to say the least. No work of world literature is probably more muddled than “Romeo and Juliet”. Artists have been working on Shakespeare’s story for four centuries, there are various operas to the play and with the “West Side Story” there is also a not entirely unsuccessful musical version.
And yet Peter Plate and Ulf Leo Sommer now want to add their two cents. On March 19, 2023, her “Romeo and Juliet” musical will premiere at Berlin’s Theater des Westens, where her conversion of the TV series “Kudamm 56” into an entertaining music theater spectacle is currently taking place with great success every evening.
Historical costumes, contemporary music
The highlight of “Romeo and Juliet” is that the actors wear costumes in the fashion of the Elizabethan era – and in the dialogue scenes they stick to the historical translation of the drama by August Wilhelm Schlegel from 1796. Today, on the other hand, the choreographies and the music should be. Of the four numbers that the two songwriters presented on Wednesday at a presentation in the Theater des Westens, two are recycled from their own oeuvre.
On the one hand, there is a duet that Plate and Sommer composed back in 2014 for a “Romeo” drama production in Kiel: Daniel Karasek, the director of the theater there, had requested a few songs. In addition, the old Rosenstolz anthem “Love is everything” will act as another love duet. They just couldn’t think of a better song, Peter Plate admitted with disarming frankness at the presentation.
Because Ulf Leo Sommer and he not only have a heart for operetta, but also find countertenors fascinating, they invented a role for Nils Wanderer, who sings in the highest register and whom the two call “our muse”: the angel of death. His number, presented on Wednesday, begins as a neo-baroque lament and then turns into Lloyd Webber-esque pomp. Nico Went comes from the “Kudamm 56” cast, who plays the fantastic Freddy there and will perform the power ballad “Es lebe der Tod” as Mercutio in the Shakespearean musical.
Thousands applied for the main roles in the show, says Ulf Leo Sommer on Wednesday. 200 potential Romeos and Juliets made it into the castings, in the end Yasmina Hempel and Paul Csitkovics were the lucky ones who will play the dream couple.
The new show will be produced by BMG, a company of the Bertelsmann Group, which has rented the Theater des Westens from the Hamburg musical provider Stage Entertainment, initially until the end of 2024. A third Plate summer musical is already being considered and is also planned there will also be readings and concerts with Bertelsmann artists in the magnificent Wilhelminian building in the future. Fredrik Hanssen
A recording of the “Kudamm 56” musical is currently available free of charge in the ZDF media library.
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Source: Tagesspiegel
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