Originally conceived by Djaoui as a grand musical performed in Jerusalem to celebrate the 3000th anniversary of the city's founding, it was eventually staged as a concert in the first production at Broadway's New Amsterdam Theater after Disney's restoration.
[9] While Djaoui had wanted a grandeous musical, Menken assessed "the enormous space really could only handle a concert" so the project evolved into a humbler oratorio.
[10] Robert W. McTyre, senior vice president of Walt Disney Theatrical Productions said, "this work is being written as a concert – or as Alan [Menken] would say, an oratorio" and that following the performance “then we'll see what kind of life it has".
[10] King David's planned debut in Caesarea, Israel in September 1996 was cancelled; Menken cited the score not being completed and due to security concerns; ultimately an opportunity arose at the New Amsterdam once Disney came on as producer.
[15] Rice opined ''it's really a fairly un-Broadway piece...something that we hope will work eventually on Broadway, but the great thing is we haven't had to worry about how we get people on and off stage.
[17] The team decided against a clear viewpoint of the Bible as a work of fiction versus a record of historical events, and instead focused on the political and psychological life of a leader with modern day allegories.
[3] Disney officials would not comment on the cost of the concert presentation of "David" or the price of tickets, though they intimated the latter would fall in line with current Broadway levels.
[19] Premiering on May 15, 1997 five days earlier than originally scheduled,[20] the two-hour 40-minute, 30-song song cycle was presented with a chorus of 30 and an orchestra of 65; the performers were costumed and there was a set, but the production was not choreographed or fully staged.
[3] King David is mostly sung-through with little dialogue, and the music incorporates genres ranging from pop, jazz, and rock, to grand ballad-like choral arrangements.
[7] For Menken, the process of making King David was like writing an album, where he played with styles including Semitic Middle Eastern, cantorial, pop, and classical.
[7] The New York Times felt the show "set[s] these exultant exclamations, sung by a horde of victory-drunk ancient Israelites, to a rousing, peppy melody that bizarrely evokes the fare that clean-cut choral groups like the New Christy Minstrels used to perform".
[16] Rice's intention was to follow the same developmental route he and Andrew Lloyd Webber undertook with Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita, which started life as recordings and concerts respectively.
The album entitled Alan Menken & Tim Rice's King David - A World Premiere Concert Event - Highlights from the Live Performance was released on June 24, 1997.
The cast included Roger Bart, Stephen Bogardus, Judy Kuhn, Alice Ripley, Martin Vidnovic, and Michael Goz, with Marcus Lovett in the title role.
On September 6, 1997, Patti LuPone, Davis Gaines, and Rebecca Luker gave a concert at the Hollywood Bowl that ended with three selections from King David.
[4] In 2017, Menken explained, "I'd like to go back and fix King David", but that his schedule was filled by the Disney's live-action remakes of his scores, with Beauty and the Beast (2017) released, and Aladdin (2019) and The Little Mermaid (2023) in production.
The New York Times' Ben Brantley wrote "the show is sober, respectful, packed with enough information for a month of Bible-study classes and, on its own terms, most carefully thought out, with pop equivalents of operatic motifs and exotic folkloric touches a la Borodin.
[4] The Los Angeles Times deemed the "benediction" a "nine-performance excuse for a CD and a possible (but I wouldn't bet on it) tryout for a full production", and felt it "confuses banality with dignity, bombast with piety...an ambitious and derivative example of the it's-so-loud-and-humorless-it-must-be-art style, the dull but earnest offspring of “Jesus Christ, Superstar” and “Les Miserables".