Leonardo the Musical: A Portrait of Love is a musical

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 with a book by Greg Moeller and Russell Dunlop and music and lyrics by Tommy Moeller. The 1993 West End

West End theatre

West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...

 production is considered one of the biggest disasters in the history of London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 theatre

Theatre

Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

.

The project, a highly fiction

Fiction

Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...

alized account of Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...

's creation of the Mona Lisa

Mona Lisa

Mona Lisa is a portrait by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. It is a painting in oil on a poplar panel, completed circa 1503–1519...

, was the brainchild of Duke Minks, an advisor to the Republic of Nauru

Nauru

Nauru , officially the Republic of Nauru and formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island country in Micronesia in the South Pacific. Its nearest neighbour is Banaba Island in Kiribati, to the east. Nauru is the world's smallest republic, covering just...

 and former road manager for the 1960s pop group, Unit 4 + 2

Unit 4 + 2

Unit 4 + 2 were a British pop band, who had a number one hit in the UK Singles Chart in 1965 with the song "Concrete and Clay". The track topped the UK chart for one week.-Early days:...

. He convinced government officials to invest £2 million —derived from profits earned from their major export, bird droppings rich in phosphates

Phosphate mining in Nauru

The economy of Nauru has been almost wholly dependent on phosphate, which has led to environmental catastrophe on the island, with 80% of the nation’s surface having been strip-mined...

— in the production, a fact later gleefully exploited by the critics in their scathing reviews. Leonardo is only one example of the squandering of the Nauruan national wealth

Economy of Nauru

Revenues of Nauru have traditionally come from exports of phosphate rock. Primary phosphate reserves were exhausted, and mining ceased, but in 2006-07, mining of a deeper layer of "secondary phosphate" began. It is hoped that this economic activity might lift Nauru from the bottom rung of global...

, which the government there has carried out for decades.

The rambling plot —which started and ended with its protagonist on his deathbed, his completed masterpiece at his side— centered on the struggling artist da Vinci's commission to paint a young woman named Lisa, betrothed to nobleman Francesco Del Giocondo. The artist and his model engage in a passionate affair resulting in her pregnancy, and she returns to her fiancé, pretending the child is his to avoid public scandal and his private wrath. Eventually she returns to beg for forgiveness from the now successful da Vinci, who accidentally is murdered by her husband when he confronts the two in a jealous rage. A subplot hinting at da Vinci's homosexuality

Homosexuality

Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...

 involved his close friendship with his young assistant, a painter named Melzi.

The production, plagued by problems with sets, costumes, and —most significantly— the script throughout its development, opened at the Strand Theatre

Novello Theatre

The Novello Theatre is a West End theatre on Aldwych, in the City of Westminster.-History:The theatre was built as one of a pair with the Aldwych Theatre on either side of the Waldorf Hotel, both being designed by W. G. R. Sprague. The theatre opened as the Waldorf Theatre on 22 May 1905, and was...

 on June 3, 1993. By the time the performance ended, nearly four hours after the curtain first rose, most of the audience had departed. A victim of critical disdain and audience indifference, the show closed five weeks later on July 10. The cast included Paul Collis, Jane Arden

Jane Arden (actress)

Jane Arden is an English actress.Born in Great Britain, she spent her childhood in Hong Kong and returned to the UK to train for the theatre...

, James Barron, and Hal Fowler.

Partial song list

• "Who The Hell Are You?"
• "Firenza Mia"
• "Part Of Your Life"
• "Just A Dream Away"
• "Her Heart Beats"
• "Endless As My Love"
• "Just One More Time"
• "Goodbye And No One Said A Word"
• "Forever Child"
• "Portrait Of Love"
• "She Lives With Me"