Michael Kunze

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Michael Kunze (born 9 November 1943) is a German lyricist, book writer and librettist.

[edit] Life and work

Born in Prague, Kunze grew up in Munich. While studying law in the mid-1960s, he began writing song lyrics. Stars such as Udo Jürgens, Nana Mouskouri, Peter Alexander, Jürgen Drews, Münchener Freiheit and Holger Biege had some of their greatest hits with his songs.

Kunze also had international success with Silver Convention, Julio Iglesias, Herbie Mann, Gilbert Bécaud, Lulu and Sister Sledge, among others; for these purposes he sometimes used the pseudonym "Stephan Prager" (composed of the name of his son, Stephan, and his birth city, Prague). Silver Convention's hit Fly, Robin, Fly reached number 1 in the US Billboard charts.

At the height of his success he would occasionally withdraw from the pop scene in order to write books. Straße in Feuer (English: Highroad to the Stake: A Tale of Witchcraft) became a worldwide best-seller, to which the New York Times Book Review Supplement devoted a two-page review.

In the 1980s, Kunze discovered the musical. His successful translations of the works of Andrew Lloyd Webber (Evita, Cats, Phantom of the Opera, Aspects of Love, Sunset Boulevard) and above all, of Stephen Sondheim (Company, Follies, Into the Woods), have brought him renown in the field. Likewise he is credited with the German versions of A Chorus Line, Little Shop of Horrors, Kiss of the Spider Woman, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Lion King, Mamma Mia!, and Elton John's Aida.

Since the beginning of the 1990s, Kunze has written several of his own musicals. In 1990, together with his friend Sylvester Levay, he produced Hexen, Hexen, and in 1992, Elisabeth, which played for more than four years at the Theater an der Wien. This was followed by Dance of the Vampires (with Roman Polanski, music by Jim Steinman) and Mozart!.

More recent works include a play entitled Lenya (premiered at the Kurt-Weill-Fest in Dessau, 2002); an American opera, Raoul (music: Gershon Kingsley); and the German version of Dracula, The Musical (music: Karel Svoboda), which had its premiere at the Musicaltheater, Basel, on 30 April 2004.

In 2006 two new Michael Kunze musicals opened. Rebecca (music: Sylvester Levay), based on Daphne du Maurier's famous novel, premiered on September 28 at Vienna's Raimund Theater. Critics praised it as "a dream of a musical" (Variety magazine) and the audience response made it into an immediate box office success. Rebecca, directed by the distinguished opera director Francesca Zambello, may well become Kunze's biggest hit yet.

On November 2, 2006, Marie Antoinette, his musical dramatizing the events of the French Revolution, opened at Tokyo's prestigious Imperial Theatre. Again Sylvester Levay wrote the music for this highly emotional drama musical. It was directed by Tamiya Kuriyama, chief director of Japan's New National Theatre. Kunze regards Marie Antoinette as his greatest artistic achievement yet. The show will run in Tokyo, Fukuoka, Osaka and, from April through May 2007, once more in Tokyo.

He and his wife, Roswitha, live in Hamburg, Germany.