About the work
The musical with music by Jim Steinman and book and lyrics by Michael Kunze, based on Roman Polanski's 1967 cult film of the same name, was premiered in 1997 at the Raimund Theater in Vienna under Polanski's own direction. Steinman, famous for Bat Out of Hell with Meat Loaf, composed an opulent rock score that transformed the film's ironic comedy into an emotionally grand stage work. The German-language production became one of the most successful musicals in European theatre history.
Plot
The eccentric Professor Abronsius and his shy assistant Alfred travel to a remote Transylvanian village in search of vampires. In the snowy inn, Alfred falls in love with the innkeeper's daughter Sarah. When Sarah is abducted by the charismatic Count von Krolock, Abronsius and Alfred infiltrate his gothic castle. There, amid a society of undead nobles, they witness the legendary Ball of the Vampires. Alfred appears to rescue Sarah—but she has already been bitten. In the closing number, the three fugitives ironically announce that evil has escaped into the world at large.
Cultural significance
Tanz der Vampire became a fixture of German-language musical theatre after early difficulties, with over ten million spectators worldwide to date. The ballad Totale Finsternis—a German reworking of Total Eclipse of the Heart, originally composed by Steinman for Bonnie Tyler—became an iconic German-language musical duet. The 2002 Broadway production flopped spectacularly, while German productions in Vienna, Hamburg, Stuttgart, and Berlin have broken attendance records. The work's ironic-gothic tone helped define the twenty-first-century German musical aesthetic.