After a visit to the city three years ago, Viennese actor Maxi Blaha has brought the life of Emilie Floge to the Savoy.
Blaha said she was asked by the Belvedere Museum in Vienna to develop a play on the life of Floge, the partner of artist Klimt, who produced famous works including The Kiss, on the centenary of his death.
The Belvedere Museum has The Kiss as part of its collection.
Floge, the subject of the painting, was a successful businesswoman and owner of a haute couture fashion salon.
"Gustav Klimt sent the wealthy women whose portraits he painted to Emilie Floge to be dressed in the corset-free gowns she’d created, and she sent her clients back to him to get their portraits painted.
"She wasn’t only his muse and best friend, but also his business partner, and vice versa."
Blaha went to London and asked writer Penny Black, whom she had worked with in the past, to write the play.
Beloved Muse debuted at the Belvedere Castle in March to sell-out crowds, and she had since performed it 35 times including in New York and recently in Australia.
After Dunedin the show would head back to Vienna, then to Paris and London. All up the tour would take two years.
Blaha said she had been in Dunedin before in another show three years ago.
"I liked it so much," the actor said, "that I wanted to come back.
"I really like this town very much, I’m very happy to be back," she said of Dunedin.
While the play stayed the same over its 35 outings, the surroundings had "a great impact on me", she explained yesterday.
In Vienna she had played in front of The Kiss, but the Savoy was also "a marvellous venue for this play".
"It’s so unique and stylish."
• Beloved Muse is on at the Savoy tonight at 7.30pm.
