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emptymasks · 2 years ago

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Old Web European Musical Sites

So this post started because I was looking through the waybackmachine on the Internet Archive for the old Disney Fairies site for a friend, and remembered I'd backed up some old musical related sites a couple years ago on the waybackmachine just to archive them.

Which made me remember how recently I saw someone on here, I don't remember who, asking if there were interviews either about Elisabeth das Musical or specifically with Uwe Kroger (the actor who originated the role of Der Tod/Death) in English to which someone had answered no but there are some quotes and fragments in other posts on here. Which made me remember an old website I'd found that did have interviews on and I went out to find it. After I found it, I tried to find another website I'd found that had nice old photos of Uwe on that I'd save for I'd never seen them anywhere else, but sadly can no longer find the site and I hadn't bookmarked it or archived it. But, in doing so I did find some others.

So, come along with me as I find some ye olde websites based around European Musicals and Non-English Musicals, all of which I am archiving using the waybackmachine and can be found on my archive.org account @ wennli3b3 under the 'web archives' tab on my profile.

What is old web? The aesthetics wiki describes it as "Essentially consisting of screencaps and gifs, Old Web is an aesthetic utilizing traditional web design elements combined with aspects of poetry and self-expression. This also includes GIFs, video games, and clip-art. This aesthetic expresses nostalgia for Internet culture of the early 1990s to early 2010s." Think of old GeoCities and AngelFire websites, the pre-2010s internet where it wasn't uncommon for anyone to make their own little website for anything and the internet wasn't just social media. There's just such a charm for me about these old sites and the work people put into customising and decorating their sites, often just as a fun project for themselves or a way to document things they loved. Therefore the websites we'll be looking at are from the 90s up to the late 2000s, 2010s and onwards websites don't count for this list.

What is the waybackmachine? The waybackmachine is hosted on the Internet Archive, it's a digital archive of websites that lets you visit websites as they were during the past if they've been archived there.

[Note: this post won't have clickable links because that can make Tumblr unhappy and either hide or soft-block my post, so sadly no clickable links, but I will write out the links with spaces in the hopes that won't hide the post and you will just have to type them in for yourselves, and I will link my web archive page in the replies to this post. I am also not claiming to be the first to back these sites up or discover them, some of them have already been archived in past, but doing them all under one account means you guys can have an easy list of them all in one place. Some of these sites no longer exist and are only accessible via the waybackmachine, in those cases I will save those sites to my web archive so they are all listed on one page.]

1. musicalvienna . at

Staring with a website some of you will be familiar with and while in it's current 2023 form doesn't count as old web and is easily accessible, we're going back in time with the waybackmachine to see how the site looked and what information it had about old current productions in 2000-2008. And frankly I don't know what to do with the information that at some point in 2000 there was a 'vampire museum' inside the Raimund Theatre that had what appears to be a wax figure of Steve Barton in his original Graf von Krolock costume. I. What??

2. eljen . net / kroeger

A fansite dedicated to Uwe Kroger, the actor, that was run seemingly from 1998-2002 that old photos, links to music that no longer work, but most important to me is the 'Press' page that has many articles and interviews with Uwe that have been translated into English! The site is also available in German eljen . net / kroeger / deutsch. A special shoutout to Uwe's own drawing of himself as Der Tod.

3. eljen . net / elisabeth

Run by the same person as the first site, in fact it is technically the same site however if you go to the root eljen . net there is just a blank page with a link to the /kroeger site, there's no direct link to the Elisabeth site, you can only find it through googling or having the direct URL.

4. iukc . de

The Uwe Kroger fanclub webite seems to have started around 2000 but it was taken offline sometime after October 2021 as going to the URL now leads to a 404 error page, but the site is still accessible using the waybackmachine. On a 2019 capture of the website it states this fanclub was dissolved on December 31st 2019 and was advertising the uwe-kroeger-community . com website as a new fanclub. Some of the pages are available in English and Japanese, but all of the pages are only available in German. The site includes information about the fanclub, as well as lists of Uwe's work, discography, and more.

5. gudrun-kauck . de

A site that as far as I can tell is run by someone just documenting their life and things they see, and that happens to include many musicals. Down the left side of the site there are pages for The Phantom of the Opera, Tanz der Vampire, Ludwig, Concerts, Musicals and Actors. Here there is so much information, interviews, photos, screenshots, transcriptions of scripts and lyrics, articles, and more. This site is a real treasure trove. It's been updating since at least 2004 and it's most recent update was in 2023. This site is in German.

6. jimsteinman . com

The Tanz der Vampire page on Jim Stienman's website has links to lots of articles, interviews and photos for the original 1997 Vienna production and the 2000 Stuttgart production. This site is in English.

7. carpe-jugulujm . com

Another site that is no longer active and can only be accessed via the waybackmachine, it was online by 2006 and taken offline between late 2021 and 2023. It has information on productions of Tanz der Vampire between 1997 and 2009 and is one of the few if not the only place I've found information about the 2000 Estonia production. This site is in English.

8. geocities . ws / mymusicalworlds

This website is all in Chinese, however parts of it are in English and German. It lists information on different musicals, actors, and has lyrics for songs, and photos. It also has midi files but, as with almost all of these old sites, the download links no longer work.

9. theatre-musical . com

This website started around 2002 and was closed some time in 2016, if you go to the website now all you'll get is a message saying the website has been closed, however the old pages are still accessible via the waybackmachine. There's pages for many musicals with lots of information about each show and each of these musical pages has a link to a page that lists other sites, official and fanmade, that are about this musical. There's many more sites to find via

10. elisabeth-fanclub . de

A fansite dedicated to Elisabeth das Musical, more specifically the 2001 Essen production and 2003 Vienna Revival. This site includes information and photos about these productions. It was online by 2004 and was taken offline some time after 2007 and is only now available via the waybackmachine. This site is in German.

11. sisi-net . de

While this site is more dedicated to the actual real Empress Elisabeth, it also has a page dedicated to Elisabeth das Musical which includes several articles and interviews for the 2001 Essen production. There is also some information on here about the Ludwig musical. This site is in German. It was online by 1999, in 2008 the site was empty and "'"under construction" and after 2008 seemed to have either had it's domain sold or hacked and became used for something else, and by 2019 was offline.

12. geocities . com / broadway / 8851

Another site that is dedicated to the real person Elisabeth, but also has information about multiple productions of Elisabeth das Musical. The site was started in 1996 and is no longer online as GeoCities no longer exists as a website hoster, but can be accessed using the waybackmachine. This site is in English.

13. elisabeth-musicpage . de

A German fansite for the 2001 Essen production of Elisabeth das Musical that contains information about the show, merchandise, photos, etc. The site was online by 2002, went under construction in 2005 and after 2006 went offline and only accessible via the waybackmachine. This site is in German.

14. elisabeth-das-musical . de

The old official site for the 2001 Essen production of Elisabeth das Musical. It's only accessible via the waybackamachine however all I could access is this homepage as the site seems to require flash player which no longer exists. The site was made in 2001, by 2006 it was redirecting to a different website that no longer exists, and by 2008 it was just offline.

15. sissi . nl

The official site for the 1999 Dutch production of Elisabeth das Musical. The site went up in 1999 and is no longer online and only accessible via the waybackmachine.

16. marloes . info

A site where someone cataloged every musical they saw between 1996 and 2004. Some of these listings link to their reviews of the musicals and pictures they took (the pictures of Elisabeth das Musical really interest me because they went on a night where Jesper Tyden was understudying for Der Tod (he usually played Rudolf) in teh 2001 Essen production).

17. danceofthevampries . com

The official site for the 2002 Broadway production of Tanz der Vampire. Whilst we all have... feelings about this production, the site's design is very of its time. It has information on the (re-written) plot, cast, downloads for the original English demo recordings (that no longer work), and more. In 2002 the cast page lists the Broadway cast, after the shows closure in 2003 these pages advertised the 2003 Hamburg cast, and by 2006 it now advertises the 2006 Berlin cast, and then even by 2012 that page was no longer being updated. This site is now only accessible via the waybackmachine, I don't know when exactly it went offline but I remember being able to acccess it back in 2020. This site is in English.

18. tanzdervampire . de

The official site for German-lanuage productions of Tanz der Vampire from 2000 to around 2004, mostly the 2003 Hamburg production. Some pages of the site sometimes redirect to musicalwelt . de, like the 'galarie' page that links to a page of many paintings by Mike Schöbs of the original 1997 Vienna production. The site is only accessible via the waybackmachine, sometimes I have difficultly loading the pages, and sometimes the pages on later dates redirect to stagegholding . de which no longer exists or works.

19. tanz-der-vampire . de

A fansite for the 2003 Hamburg production of Tanz der Vampire that is still online. It has info about the musical and this production. The page I found the most interesting is the info > links page. It has a list that includes screenshots of websites from around 2003 with official and fanmade sites for different actors from the musical (such as Marjan Shaki, Maike Switzer, Aris Sas, Thomas Mülner, Jens Janke, Ian Jon Bourg, Kevin Tarte and more) most if not all of these sites are on the waybackmachine (and I'm saving them to my own web archive page rather than listing them all here, Tumblr has a text limit and an image limit and we're already running close to it).

20. fuer-sarah . de

A fansite dedicated to actors who played Sarah including understudies, alternates, swings, and dancers who played Sarah/Solo Female Dancer in the dance sequences in Tanz der Vampire. This site is in German and is only available via the waybackmachine and was active between 2001-2005.

21. musicalland . de

A fansite dedicated to musical theatre with some more specific pages dedicated too Elisabeth das Musical, The Phantom of the Opera, 42nd Street and Mamma Mia. The site is still online and stopped updating in 2010. This site is in German. The link to the Elisabeth das Musical page no longer works, but can still be accessed using the waybackmachine.

22. old-hickory . demon . co . uk / jim

A fan page for composer Jim Steinman that has pages about his non-musical work as well as his musicals Tanz der Vampire and Whistle Down the Wind. The Tanz der Vampire pages include lyrics in German and English, as well as the entire original 1997 Vienna libretto translated into English, as well as the 2000 Stuttgart production's programme fully translated into English that includes information and interviews. The site is in English and only accessible via the waybackmachine.

23. romeojulietmusicals . com

A fan site for the French musical Roméo et Juliette that has pages dedicated to many different language productions with cast lists, information, lyrics and lyric translations. There are galleries on the site but the images on longer load. This site is in English and was online between 2004 to 2008. There is a 'related links' page that contains so many more links to other musical sites.

24. compat . tf1 . fr

A fan site for Roméo et Juliette for the original 2000 Paris production containing images of the cast, and video interviews and behind the scenes with links that no longer work. This site is in French.

25. mozartbudapest . hu

The official website for the 2003 Budapest production of Mozart das Musical. This website is only accessible via the waybackmachine, it contains the cast list, a bio of Mozart (the person), but sadly most of the image no longer work. I mention it here only because when i opened it I was surprised the original logo animation and music still played. This site is available in English and Hungarian.

26. notredameonline . com

During 2000-2001 this URL was for the French musical Notre Dame de Paris and you can see this via the waybackmachine. The site then went offline after 2001 and the domain was sold and since 2006 has belonged to the University of Notre Dame. I really like the design of this site, sadly most of the links open pop-ups that no longer work. The site is available in French and English.

27. notredamedeparis . it

The official site for the 2002 Italian tour of Notre Dame de Paris. It has a lot of information about the musical and this specific production. This site is in Italian and is only accessible via the waybackmachine.

28. geocities . ws / dreamcatcher182004

A fansite dedicated to a few musicals that was last updated in 2003. It has pages for Chicago, Les Mis, Miss Saigon, The Phantom of the Opera and Tanz der Vampire.

So yeah, that was a list. I hope that was interesting or for anyone wanting to find more information about these musicals for research, essays, or just for fun, that this post was helpful or interesting in some way. There are a lot more websites than just the ones on this list, however Tumblr has both a photo and a character limit for text posts. Hope someone found this interesting. I just like making lists.