received a negative review in The New York Times by K. Robert Schwardz who found it to have "Generic chord progressions, clumsy text setting and cheesy synthesized sound effects" In March 1999, David Del Tredici's Dracula premiered based on Alfred Corn's poem My Neighbor, the Distinguised Count. Ballet The popular and successful balletic Dracula adaptation by Michael Pink and Christopher Gable premiered in 1997, to commemorate the centenary publication of the novel. It was created for the Northern Ballet Theatre in the United Kingdom. The production stays as faithful to the book as possible in non-verbal theatre. Original music was composed by Philip Feeney, the Naxos recording of the score has remained a top seller. Sets and costumes were designed by Lez Brotherston, whose career as a designer for dance began with NBT. Lighting was by Paul Pyant. The production has been seen throughout the world, most companies presenting the work more than once during the last decade. It is the lure of the novel that makes this as popular in the dance world as the film industry. This same production team is responsible for many successful adaptations of popular novels. Dracula, a balletic adaptation of Houston Ballet by choreographer Ben Stevenson, set to the music of Franz Liszt, with costumes by Judanna Lynn and set design by Thomas Boyd, premiered in 1997. The ballet saw many US productions since its premiere. The ballet's plot features a set of original characters and happens entirely in Transylvania. A new Northern Ballet Theatre production of Dracula was created by choreographer David Nixon in 2005 and has become popular at Halloween among many companies in the US and England. Originally Nixon choreographed his "Dracula" ballet in 1999 for Ballet Met, then redesigned production in 2005 for Northern Ballet. The ballet uses music of Alfred Schnittke and Sergei Rachmaninoff. In November 2013, Turkish State Opera and Ballet premiered a new ballet adaptation entitled Kont Dracula at Ankara Opera House. Live-action films Director F.W. Murnau made an adaptation of Dracula with Nosferatu (1922). Newman declared that this adaptation as "the only screen adaptation of Dracula to be primarily interested in horror, from the character's rat-like features and thin body, the film was, even more so than The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, "a template for the horror film." In June 1930, Universal Studios officially purchased the rights to both the play and the novel Dracula. Dracula