Musical theater
“Desert Flower” as a musical
The composer Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen set the story of the “Desert Flower” to music. photo
© Peter Kneffel/dpa
In a few days the musical “Wüstenblume” will celebrate its German premiere in Munich. The composer Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen explains what the piece is about.
“Waris Dirie was forced to marry at the age of eleven – for five camels – then fled barefoot through the desert, was homeless in London, then was discovered cleaning at McDonald’s and ended up on the cover of “Vogue” – and in between taught himself how to read and write,” the composer told the German Press Agency. “But after that she didn’t move into the castle with a prince, but said: Now I have to go back and save the others too.”
Waris Dirie, who comes from Somalia and became famous as a model, also tells in “Wüstenblume” how she was a victim of genital mutilation as a child. “It’s actually just her life story, you can’t do anything about it. It’s not fiction, but simply a biographical story,” said the composer.
The story has everything: “It has laughter, tears, drama. It’s a female empowerment story that ends well.” Despite the tragic and dramatic beginning, the audience in St. Gallen, Switzerland, where the musical has been performed so far, would have had a smile on their faces at the end.
Fahrenkrog-Petersen, who also wrote Nena’s super hit “99 Luftballons”, for example, has other musical plans: He is working on a heavy metal musical based on Richard Wagner’s “Ring of the Nibelung” called “Walhalla Unlimited” and one utopian science fiction musical spectacle.
Information about the musical