About the work
Marie Antoinette is a musical by Sylvester Levay (music) and Michael Kunze (lyrics and book), the team behind Elisabeth and Mozart!. The world premiere took place in Tokyo in 2006, with the German-language premiere in Bremen in 2009. The work depicts the final years of the French queen before and during the Revolution.
Plot
The musical sets the historical queen Marie Antoinette against a fictional, impoverished Parisian woman of the same first name—"Margrid Arnaud"—whose fates intertwine in the maelstrom of the French Revolution. As the extravagant court society of Versailles staggers toward ruin, anger grows among the starving people. Marie Antoinette travels the path from celebrated, then hated, queen to imprisonment and execution beneath the guillotine, while the Revolution devours its own children.
Cultural significance
Marie Antoinette in a sense completes Kunze and Levay's "death trilogy" about dazzling, tragic historical figures. As with Elisabeth, the work combines grand symphonic pop ballads with a critical view of power, privilege, and social upheaval. Particularly successful in Japan and the German-speaking world, it is part of the characteristic repertoire of the "Viennese musical."