Sunset Boulevard by Lloyd Webber, From (2023/2023), Directed by Tilman Gersch, Conductor Olivier Pols, Theater Heilbronn, Heilbronn, Germany

Norma Desmond, once the worshiped screen goddess of the silent era, now withered and forgotten, stalks like a ghost through her lavish mansion on Sunset Boulevard. Her secretive butler Max is the only connection to the outside world. When one day the unsuccessful, indebted screenwriter Joe Gillis seeks refuge from his creditors behind the walls of the overgrown estate, Norma's fate seems to change: she hires the young man to help her with a script she has written. Joe gets more and more drawn into the aging diva and her illusory world, eventually becoming her lover. And Norma increasingly works her dream of a spectacular Hollywood comeback as Salome - until Gillis brings down the house of cards of illusions... Myths and stories surround Sunset Boulevard, which stretches from downtown Los Angeles through Beverly Hills and West Hollywood. Some of the big stars from the heyday of the old studios had lavish mansions built there, behind the walls of which extravagant parties and cinematic tragedies took place. Billy Wilder chose this »Boulevard of Twilight« as the location and title for his 1950 Oscar-winning film classic, in which he uses the means of a gloomy film noir to sarcastically settle accounts with the dream factory and its merciless star system. Around 40 years later, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Don Black and Christopher Hampton turned this film into a musical that has since become a classic in its own right. With an opulent film soundtrack, swinging dance ensembles and touching ballads, they bring Hollywood of the studio era to dazzling, monumental musical life in »Sunset Boulevard«. Norma Desmond is one of the greatest roles in the musical genre.