Great romps! "Grease" celebrates its premiere in Zurich

18/01/2018 written by Remo Schraner, Mario von Ow und Christoph Soltmannowski

Rock 'n' roll, brightly colored outfits and kilos of hair gel: the musical "Grease" is back in Switzerland.So it's high time to get the pink Cadillac out of the garage.

It's the high school musical of the 70s, and it's set in the 50s: Danny and Sandy fall madly in love during the summer vacation. Back at school, the everyday problems begin. And so they dance and sing until everyone is happy again. None of this is possible without a lot of pomade in the hair, in English: "grease". This is how the musical got its name.

The first version of the play lasted a whopping five hours. It celebrated its premiere in Chicago in 1971. A year later, the school romance moved to Broadway in New York. And stayed there for seven years. During this time, over 3,000 performances were staged.

Another production of "Grease" was staged in London in 1973. The leading role was played by future Hollywood star Richard Gere (68). However, Gere was not able to celebrate a resounding success with this stage play. Unlike his fellow actor John Travolta (63) a few years later.

In 1978, the Italian-American slipped into the leading role of Danny Zuko. Travolta had already proved that he could dance the previous year in the film "Saturday Night Fever". The original version of "Grease" was shortened for the film and new songs were added, such as the title song composed by former Bee Gees singer Barry Gibb (71).

Olivia Newton-John (69) was already a successful singer at the time. However, she was still hardly known in Europe. This changed abruptly with the "Grease" film adaptation. As Sandy, Newton-John sang the ballad "Hopelessly Devoted To You", among others. This song was a real catchy tune and stayed in the charts in Europe for months.

Swiss "DSDS" star in the leading role

Chanelle Wyrsch from Zug plays one of the leading roles in the new production of "Grease".

The movie at the end of the 70s created a real hype around the musical. To this day, there are countless productions that bring the hits to the stage. One of these ensembles will be making a guest appearance in Switzerland from Tuesday until September. The play already has a little Swissness: Chanelle Wyrsch (21) from Zug plays and sings the role of Sandy. Wyrsch became known to a wider audience last year when she made it into the top ten of the casting show "Deutschland sucht den Superstar". Her boyfriend Alexander Jahnke (30) came second - and is now playing the male lead in the "Grease" musical.

This article first appeared in SonntagsBlick.

GREASE
17.01.-04.02.2018, Theater 11 Zurich
25.08.-23.09.2018, Theatersaal National Bern
TICKETS

Translated with DeepL