Don't most Vampire fans feel the original European production would have played better here anyway? (I don't know enough to comment). Quality-wise, it's at least more consistent than the Broadway version. It's more
Phantom than
Rocky Horror, let's say. But in all reality, the vast majority of the score was actually the same as in Europe, something the Broadway rewrite didn't take into consideration when re-developing a dark, brooding opera into a campy romp.
As Ken Mandelbaum put it in his review at the time, "What no one involved seemed to realize was that the jokey new book would be at odds with the score, resulting in a show that doesn't seem to have a clue about what it wants to be. Steinman's songs are still largely high-powered anthems ('Braver Than We Are' for the young lovers, Alfred's 'For Sarah,' Krolock's 'Confession of a Vampire'), and several of them are melodically attractive. But any merit the score once had is difficult to discern now that the songs are surrounded by a book in a wholly different style."
Whether or not the show in its original style would have worked on Broadway, I dunno. Many people seem to contend that the style of
Tanz der Vampire as it is in Europe would be D.O.A. on Broadway, both with critics and audiences, because apparently
Chess was the last time anyone was ever going to take a chance on a European import. Rather silly attitude, if you ask me, but I think the assessment is accurate.
Now, say, if an American team were to go back to the original and craft a new version, something very similar in form, meaning, and spirit to the German stage hit, something that plays brilliantly in English, while also having its own unique sense of poetry, language, etc., geared to the sensibilities of an English-speaking audience, it might have a fighting chance. On the other hand, it might not. Only an actual attempt would prove anything.
"There is no problem so big that it cannot be run away from."
~ Charles M. Schulz
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