Book and lyrics: Beate Haeckl
Composers: Brynmor L. Jones / Danny Ashkenasi
Collaboration on the book: Bernd J. Braun
The lyrics also exist in English
SOURCE
The colourful figure of the wandering monk and faith healer Rasputin, close confidant of Tsar Nicholas II at the imperial court of Russia, his dissolute life, and his murder at the hands of Prince Yusupov have left a lasting mark on the collective memory ever since.
With the composer Brynmor L. Jones I developed the first version of the musical about Rasputin under the title Icon. At that stage the work closely followed the historical figure and its historical background. Later, with the composer Danny Ashkenasi more modern elements entered the project: Rasputin was brought into the present and given a healing show on television. The story focused on Internet presence and, not least, on the exploitation of his mental powers by an American tycoon, ruler of the Metaverse.
All of this was conceived two decades before the worldwide spread of social media platforms, VR, AR, and Meta. Back then, we were evidently too far ahead of our time, since no one seemed to grasp the scope of the subject matter.
CONCEPT
The Rasputin musical was slated to have its world premiere in St. Petersburg. In 1993 a theater, the Baltiski Dom, was rented for the production. Castings and rehearsals with the dance ensemble under the direction of the American choreographer Karole Armitage, also known as the ‘Punk Ballerina‘ had already begun. Everything pointed to a successful production when suddenly the Russian mafia claimed the figure of Rasputin for itself and demanded a large share of the profits. The threats that followed prompted us to abandon the project on site.
The following years were spent searching for collaborators and producers. In the meantime, we presented the still growing project at musical fairs and recorded demo CDs. In the year 2000 we were able to present a half‑hour stage version of the piece at the 3rd German Musical Congress in Hamburg, which was received with great enthusiasm.
Today the piece is so strikingly current in its technological visions that it seems almost like a mirror of reality. Unfortunately, this time myRasputin.com appears to have been overtaken by time.
