It's only fitting that the new Elton John-Bernie Taupin bound-for-Broadway musical Lestat should premiere in San Francisco. Popular novelist Anne Rice wrote her first vampire tale, Interview With the Vampire, back when she was living in Berkeley during the hippie heyday, and the cult book's undead narrator, Louis, at the time he tells the story of his life-so-far, is a San Francisco rock star.
Now the beloved characters from several of Rice's vampire chronicles — not only Lestat but Gabrielle, Claudia, Armand, Marius, Louis, and even that comatose Egyptian couple from whom all vampires sprang — come to, er, musical life. There's a lot wrong with this well-intentioned effort to tell the tale of one 18th-century-born French ghoul's centuries-long quest for love, connection, and moral redemption across several continents. Still, under Robert Jess Roth's tight direction (musical staging by Matt West), some of it works devilishly well.
For example, the singers — seven principals and a chorus, accompanied by an orchestra — positively soar. Especially musically transcendent is Carolee Carmello: Her song of longing and despair as Lestat's dying, soon-to-be-"made" mother and her farewell song are powerfully rendered. Carmello is an impassioned performer with a vibrant voice.
Derek McLane's set, featuring elegantly compact moveable units as well as colorful, intricately detailed projections on scrims, is stunning. (The visual concept design is by Dave McKean.) And Susan Hilferty's elaborate costumes, spanning two centuries stylistically, are rich and lush.
But Linda Woolverton's book, in its effort to tell a theatrically complete, thematically broad story (aided by narrative supertitles), includes as many important characters as possible and provides a few brief touches of lightness the novel lacks. Somehow she manages to make Rice's complex characters one-dimensional.
Nor do the golden-voiced performers on the whole have the acting chops to add depth. Most choose a few general adjustments and go with them for the entire show. Particularly disappointing is Hugh Panaro, whose yellow-tressed Lestat lacks charisma and never authentically conveys the vampire's inner conflicts and despair. Thus it's hard to care about the characters' all too poignantly human concerns: heartache, betrayal, longing to live fully, searching for meaning, and so on.
And while Taupin's lyrics range from overblown to gratifyingly sharp, John's compositions mostly sound alike, are generally slow-paced, and fit into a generic musical-theatre mold. How wrong this seems for a story about blood, eroticism, and the macabre! Compelling exceptions: Act II's edgy, scary vampire chorus, "To Kill Your Kind," and Claudia's bloodthirsty rant, "I Want More."
About that eroticism: Rice's book is nothing if not sensual. Every nibble on the neck sends both demon and victim into mega-orgasm. Here, rather than relying on the actors to convey that preternatural passion, it's represented by colossal projections: red-and-orange splashes and surreal scenes of the inner life of the pair. Accompanied by thrilling sound effects (design by Jonathan Deans), these images are at times effectively chilling, but ultimately they compound Lestat's most grievous flaw: its inability to affect us on a basic, emotional level.
Lestat runs through Jan. 29 at the Curran Theatre, 445 Geary St., San Francisco. Tickets: (415) 551-2050. Website: www.shnsf.com