Germany and The Netherlands will see productions of the Disney musicals The Lion King and Aida beginning in 2001. Stage Holdings, an international entertainment group owned by Joop van den Ende, will stage the shows. The first venture to see an audience will be The Lion King in Hamburg, Germany, in the fall of 2001. The Hamburg mounting will be the first production of the Tony Award winning Lion King on the European continent. (There is already a mounting in London.) Stage Holdings will renovate a recently purchased theatre in the Hamburg harbor to house the Elton John-Tim Rice-Julie Taymor show. Seating capacity for the new theatre will be 1,800.

There are no set dates for the German production of Aida or the Dutch stagings of either musical.

The Lion King, a theatrical version of the hit animated film, opened at the New Amsterdam Theatre in New York City on Nov. 13, 1997, and has been playing to sold out crowds ever since. Aida, also penned by John and Rice, opened at the Palace Theatre on March 23, 2000.