The musical Rudolf tells the tragic story of Austrian Crown Prince Rudolf and Mary Vetsera, who were found dead in a hunting lodge in Mayerling, near Vienna. The show was previously referred to under the working title of Vienna, and now bears the subtitles The Last Kiss or Affaire Mayerling (The Mayerling Affair). It is loosely based on a book by Frederic Morton, which is available in English as A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888-1889 and in German as Ein Letzter Walzer (The Last Waltz). It has been previously published in German under the title of Herbstwaltzer: Chronik um Erzherzog Rudolf.

Performances:

Rudolf - The Last Kiss had its world premiere at the Operett Színház in Budapest, Hungary on 26 May 2006, and its open-air premiere on 28 July 2006 in Szeged, Hungary. The show is a co-production by Vereinigte Bühnen Wien, the Budapest Operetta Theater and the Szeged Open-Air Festival.

Vereinigte Bühnen Wien presented the German-language premiere of Rudolf - Affaire Mayerling at the Raimund Theater in Vienna, Austria. The show played two seasons there, from 26 February through 4 July 2009, and from 10 September 2009 through 24 January 2010. More information is available on the VBW website (in German and English). Merchandise from the show is still available.

Rudolf was voted the "best new production of 2009" by readers of the German "Musicals" magazine. Top honors were also given to leading man Drew Sarich, director David Leveaux, choreographer John O'Connell, and designers Mike Britton and Laura Hopkins. The cast recording was voted "best musical CD of 2009". The voting results have been posted at kultur-channel.at.

The video (below, at right) includes clips from the show and comments from cast members Drew Sarich and Uwe Kröger, and from opening night audience members Christian Kolonovits (composer and conductor) and Olivia Silhavy (stage and screen actress). It is in German, and runs approximately two minutes.

The cast of the show was led by Drew Sarich as Rudolf, Lisa Antoni as Mary Vetsera, Uwe Kröger as Taaffe, Claus Dam as Franz Joseph, Carin Filipcic as Marie Larisch and Wietske von Tongeren as Stephanie. The Ensemble included Kathleen Bauer (Mitzi), Silke Braas, Sasha DiCapri (Clemenceau), Alexandra Farkic, Niklas-Philipp Gertl, Matilda Hansson, Jan Hutter (Meisner), Leigh Martha Klinger, Dennis Kozeluh (Edward), Adrienn Krékacs, Robert D. Marx (Andrássy), Markus Neugebauer (Wiligut), Tineke Ogink, Martin Pasching (Wilhelm II), Kai Peterson (Szeps), Rory Six (Prince of Braganza), Manuel Stoff (Vogelsang), Niran Straub, Anja von Geldern and Claudia Wauschke. Swings for the production included Liane Maynard-Schmid, Katrin Mersch, Maxi Neuwirth, Max Niemeyer, Fritz Schmid and Marcus Tesch. Photos from the first (press) rehearsal have been posted by Kultur-Channel.

The production was directed by David Leveaux (The Real Thing, Nine, Fiddler on the Roof), with choreography by John O'Connell, music direction by Caspar Richter, orchestrations by Kim Scharnberg, arrangements and music supervision by Koen Schoots, sets by Mike Britton, costumes by Laura Hopkins, lighting by Patrick Woodroffe and Adam Bassett, and sound design by Hendrik Maaßen. The German translation was provided by Julia Sengstshmid (script) and Nina Jäger (lyrics).

The Hungarian production first opened on 26 May 2006 at Operett Színház in Budapest, with a series of performances through 3 June. Since then it has played two summers at the Szeged Open-Air Festival in Szeged and three full seasons in Budapest.

The cast for the Hungarian production was led by Attila Dolhai (Rudolf), Bernadett Vágó (Mary Vetsera), Kata Janza (Countess Larisch), Attila Németh (Franz Joseph), Tamás Földes (Taaffe, the prime minister), Veronika Nádasi (Stephanie, Rudolf's wife) and Zoltán Bereczki (Pfeiffer, the puppeteer). The show was directed by Kero® (Miklós Gábor Kerényi), with musical direction by Koen Schoots and choreography by Michael Reardon, Éva Duda, Jenõ Lõcsei and László Rogács. The musical arrangements were by Kim Scharnberg and Koen Schoots, the conductors were László Makláry, István Silló, and the chorus director was László Kéringer. The set design was by Csörsz Khell, with costume design by Rita Velich, lighting design by Péter Somfai and puppets by Lucia Õsz. The script translation was by Gergely Zöldi, with lyric translations by Gergely Zöldi, Szilárd Somogyi and Miklós Gábor Kerényi. The show was performed in Hungarian, with English subtitles.

Photos have been posted on this site from opening night and from the reading in NYC. Further details, including news, complete cast and creative team lists, photo galleries and more, are available on the Operett Színház Website (site in Hungarian).

Rudolf - The Last Kiss had its Japanese Premiere, presented by Toho Musical & Play in Tokyo from 6 May through 1 June 2008. The cast for this production included Yoshio Inoue as Rudolf, Rena Sasamoto as Mary Vetsera, Rina Chinen as Princess Stephanie, Tatsuki Kohju as Countess Larisch, Haruhiko Jo as Franz Joseph, Kenji Urai as Johann Pfeiffer, Hiroshi Hatanaka as Szeps, Yuji Kishi as Kaiser Wilhelm, Shinya Niro as Edward (Prince of Wales) and Kojiro Oka as Taaffe. The staging was directed by Amon Miyamoto. Production photos have been added to the Project Photo Gallery.

Recordings and More:

A complete DVD recording of the Vienna production of Rudolf - Affaire Mayerling is now available. The video, produced by MG-Sound and MWB, includes the full show recorded by a six camera crew, live from the stage of the Raimund Theater. The DVD has stereo and 5.1 surround sound audio, and runs about 150 minutes. VBW has announced that the DVD hit gold status on its first day of release, and it has now reached platinum status. The DVD debuted at #3 on the Austrian Music DVD charts, and hit #1 there in the week of 4 November. The DVD is currently available for purchase from VBW, Sound of Music, Musical-Shop.de or Amazon.de.

Note: the initial release of the DVD was delayed due to technical issues, which have been corrected. As previously planned, the initial release does not have English subtitles. It does include a printed synopsis of the show, in both German and English. The disc is regionless, but in PAL format. It is hoped that a second edition will follow soon, with subtitles, but this is not guaranteed to happen. Further information will be posted here as it becomes available.

A complete cast recording of the show has been released. This 2-CD set includes a booklet with a photo gallery from the production, and is available from VBW, Amazon.de and Sound of Music.

Information on this other recordings of the show can now be found on the Rudolf music page.

Song lists for the Hungarian and Viennese productions are available on this site.

Sounds clips from the show, as well as a video highlight from the Hungarian stage production, are available at Jack Murphy's website.