Monday, December 03, 2007

Mamma Mia, It's Udo!

Yesterday the musical "Ich War Noch Niemals In New York" opened at the Operettenhaus at the Reeperbahn in Hamburg.
The show, with already 150.000 tickets sold in advance, is based on the songs of one time Eurovision Winner and 100 million record seller Udo Jürgens.

It seems the crowd, including celebrity red carpet huggers (Peter Kraus!, Wenche Myhre !!) loved the show, the critics are mixed. The musical is a thin story about an ambitious TV show host Lisa (Kerstin Marie Mäkelburg) who neglects her mother Maria (Ingeborg Krabbe) who's life in an old folks home bores her to tears and she flees to New York with her old-folk home amant Otto (Horst Schultheis).
Lisa, with Otto's son Axel (Jerry Marwig) needs to get the parents back to the home in a week otherwise their residences will be cancelled. Neither of them want to take care of their parent at home so they'll try everything possible to get the runaways back home in time.
Lisa is nominated for a TV award she desperately wants and at crunch time it's either the award, or getting Mutti back in time.
But it's not only the story that makes this musical interesting but it's the music. The musical is created using 23 songs by Eurovision legend Udo Jürgens. (He wrote over 900!) All his big hits feature in the show including 1966 Eurovision winner Merci Cherie, Aber bitte mit Sahne, Mit 66 Jahren, Griechischer Wein, Siebzehn Jahn - Blondes Haar, Buonas Dias Argentina and much more.

Udo Jürgens was involved in the casting for the show himself. The direction is by Christian Struppek & Glenn Casale and the production is by Maik Klokow. It's the first German only production for Dutch music theatre company Stage Entertainment.
The IwnniNY cast CD will be released in februari 2008 by Ariola/Sony.

Watch a trailer video here. More information is here (in German) and more about the cast is here.
Udo Jürgens participated for Austria in the Eurovision Songcontest in 1964, 1965 and 1966. He won in 1966 (Merci Cherie) but the 1964 entry Warum Nur Warum became an evergreen and a worldwide hit as Walk Away for Matt Monro. Find out about Walk Away covers in this Eurocovers post.
Udo Jürgens official homepage
Some reviews of the show (all in German)
Jetzt.de (Süddeutschen Zeitung)
Welt Online (Die Welt)
Tagespiegel
and an amateur Youtube excerpt

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