BIO
Michael Kunze is a lyricist and librettist of the musical theater. His hit shows ELISABETH, DANCE OF THE VAMPIRES, MOZART!, MARIE ANTOINETTE, REBECCA, MOSES, LADY BESS, DON CAMILLO & PEPPONE and MATTERHORN have reached an audience of more than 19 million people. The worldwide box office gross of his works has passed the 1 billion mark. As a lyricist he has created more than 200 chart songs and was honored with a Grammy and an Echo Lifetime Award. He also wrote several books.
His musicals are regarded the foundation of a new genre of the contemporary popular musical theatre, called the DramaMusical. It is characterized by an elaborate dramatic structure which integrates elements of the film structure into the classic two act drama form. Michael likes to describe himself as “an architect of the musical drama”.
Michael grew up in Munich, where he studied law, history and philosophy. In the late 1960s, he started to write pop songs, and soon became one of the best known songwriters of Germany. As a producer of international acts, he hit the top of both the Billboard and Cashbox charts in the US. Michael and his friend, composer Sylvester Levay, were the first Germans ever to win the coveted Grammy Award.
At the top of his success, Michael wrote a non-fiction book, "Highroad to the Stake", that was awarded the 1981 Faculty Prize by the Munich University Law School, was translated into several languages and highly praised by the New York Times Book Review.
In 1992, the first of his stage musicals opened in Vienna, a drama about the life of the Empress Elisabeth of Austria (music: Sylvester Levay). It ran for almost six years and was soon exported to other countries, such as Japan, Hungary, Sweden, Holland and Germany.
Collaborating with Roman Polanski (director) and Jim Steinman (composer), Michael wrote his first English libretto and lyrics for the musical, DANCE OF THE VAMPIRES. A German version opened in October 1997 at the Viennese Raimund Theater to raving reviews and became an international hit.
Michael has written most of his shows with his close friend, Sylvester Levay. Their second show, MOZART!, also became an immediate success. In 2006 his REBECCA, based on Daphne Du Maurier's famous novel, premiered at Vienna's Raimund Theater. MARIE ANTOINETTE, a musical dramatizing the events of the French Revolution, had a grand opening in Tokyo's most prestigious Imperial Theatre on November 1, 2006, premiered in 2009 in Europe and in 2014 in Seoul/Korea. In 2012 Michael's musical MOSES (music: Dieter Falk) premiered in Switzerland where it ran for three years. Michael and Sylvester's LADY BESS, telling the story of the young Elizabeth of England, opened in April 2014 in Tokyo. In 2017 he created a pop oratory for 3000 voices celebrating the rebellious monk, Martin LUTHER. This huge event toured European concert halls. In 2018 Michael’s show about man’s destruction of nature, MATTERHORN (music by Albert Hammond), opened in Switzerland. Currently he is working on a new choir event titled BETHLEHEM, and on another musical scheduled to open in Seoul in 2022. He is also busy writing another book, a biography of the internationally known legal theorist Rudolf von Jhering (1818-1892).
In addition to his Grammy, Michael holds an Echo Lifetime Award, 79 Gold and Platinum Records, 3 Golden Europe Awards, 2 Best Musicals Awards (Image1996 and Image 1998), Musical Of The Year Award 2000 (Mozart!), 2001 (Elisabeth), 2003 (Dance Of The Vampires), 2007 (Rebecca) and 2009 (Marie Antoinette). For his non-fiction books he was honored by the Academic Society Of Göttingen with the prestigious Grimm Brothers Award (2018). Michael is a member of GEMA, Deutsche Dramatiker Union and The Dramatists Guild, Inc. New York. He and his wife, Roswitha, live in Hamburg / Germany.