Elton John and Bernie Taupin to Score Broadway Musical Based on Vampire Novels of Anne Rice

It was announced at a press conference today that Elton John, the composer of the Broadway musicals Aida and The Lion King and of Billy Elliott, which will open in London next year, is working with his longtime collaborator, lyricist Bernie Taupin, on a new musical titled The Vampire Lestat. The inaugural production of Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures, the show will have a book by Linda Woolverton (Aida, Beauty and the Beast) and will be directed by Robert Jess Roth (Beauty and the Beast). It is planned to open on Broadway in 2005.

The musical will be based on the first three books in Anne Rice’s best-selling saga dealing with the seductive vampire Lestat: Interview With the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, and Queen of the Damned. The plot will unfold in a linear fashion, following the story of the books in order across several centuries.

Taupin and John insist that The Vampire Lestat will be very different from Dance of the Vampires, the rock-inspired musical version of Roman Polanski’s film that opened and closed swiftly on Broadway earlier this season. “This is going to be a production that is very free of Gothic clichés,” Taupin said at a press conference held this morning at The Hit Factory on West 54th Street. “We’re going to try to do this in a setting that puts the vampire in a much more human form. That way, he deals with the pitfalls and foibles that humans do but on another kind of level. I think it’s very important that we stress that this is not going to be capes and coffins and crosses.”

Anne Rice, who will help to bring her stories to the musical stage, agrees. “I am absolutely elated that this is happening,” she is quoted as saying in a press release issued today. “Lestat will be given a magnificent new incarnation. I have every confidence that the musical will be superb, as the songs I’ve heard capture the spirit of the material marvelously.”

The show will mark a significant departure for its composer and lyricist: John said at the press conference that the score, for which five songs have already been written, will be “classically influenced” and will be played by an orchestra containing no electronic instruments. According to John, the style of music may require casting in the operatic realm; the actor playing the title character will need to be extremely charismatic and will have to be able to handle the score’s complex, demanding songs.

“The music and lyrics go right to the tragic heart of the work,” Anne Rice’s statement continues. “They reflect its most ambitious themes and they are beautiful. I couldn’t be more thrilled.” John and Taupin said that they hope to have a reading of the show in November of this year.