New Wildhorn musical Casanova to debut in Vienna

VBW will present the world premiere of the new musical CASANOVA. With music by composer Frank Wildhorn (Jekyll & Hyde, Dracula, Rudolf - The Last Kiss) and lyrics by Don Black (Dracula, Sunset Boulevard, Aspects of Love), the musical revolves around the life of the charismatic and influential Giacomo Casanova. A seducing, gambling swindler of the 18th century, his autobiography "Story of My Life" detailed his often stranger than fiction life of his adventurous travels of Europe mingling with royalty and luminaries of that period. Wildhorn and Black most recently collaborated on Bonnie & Clyde, for which they received a Tony Award nomination for Best Original Score. The show will debut in 2017 in Vienna.



Source: https://www.musicalvienna.at/de/aktuelles/84/CASANOVA

I love his score for Cyrano as well as The Count of Monte Cristo. This title seems like it has the potential for a similar sounding score which doesn't bother me in the least.

Between now and the end of time I think he will.

Super, Frank must have knocked this one out between breakfast and lunch. Must go see.

Would bet the farm on it unless someone wants a guaranteed tax write off and wants to lose their entire investment.The only other way would be for aliens to come to earth and abduct all the critics and replace them with Wildhorn friendly ones.

Marcia Milgrom Dodge is directing the US premiere of The Count of Monte Cristo in May. I don't believe the production is aiming for Broadway but one can hope.

Highly unlikely

MichelleCraig said: "Just curious...has anyone with a Wildhorn-like track record ever come back to hit one out of the park?"

Well, Wildhorn kind of did. After the debacle of WONDERLAND everybody thought we'd never hear from him again. BONNIE AND CLYDE was not a financially successful show, but the community rallied around it as a much higher quality product and he ended up with a Tony nomination. Then he followed it up with that appalling JEKYLL revival and all was un-forgiven.

A few things:

-Monte Cristo's production is to allow for regional productions (there is already an English language recording).

-WONDERLAND hurt Frank's fundraising theory, and given how little royalties you get from streaming today has hurt his strategy as far as I know (versus album sales); WONDERLAND's $15 mil flop made producers cut the budget back on B&C. Pierre Cossette (who passed away in '09) pumped tons of money in Pimpernel and his wife has helped produce B&C; Kathleen Raitt is another big producer of his work, who also sadly passed away in '14.

-Jekyll & HYDE's revival was certainly trashy. I thought the vocals were phenomenal. This was, however, the Nederlander's choice for their 100th Anniversary Production.

- Don't count Frank out. My guess is he will be back in a few years after regrouping with his European and Asian counterparts, particularly for funding and try-outs. I think WONDERLAND hurt by the amount of negative feedback people (I was guilty of this after its 2nd run in Tampa) gave, and he will use international productions as try-outs. When was the last time you could find a professional review for Cyrano in Korea over here? I think we will see Cyrano at the least - Leslie Bricusse has quite a few backers as well.

At this point it's still for regional rights. Something like "Casanova" (this has been around for about 10 years in the pipeline) may have been commissioned by the VWB, I'm not entirely sure for this one, and likely has little room in the American markets. "Monte Cristo," however, is a big popular title. How many people are going to produce some other notable flops - "Hands on a Hardbody"? I doubt many.

Linda Eder is rumored to release another "Retro vol 2" recording, hopefully soon. At least the music can be heard!