The shaggy-maned idol rips into his song - and the audience screams with excitement. Some ecstatic fans storm the stage, wanting simply to touch him. Some want to bear his child. One adoring woman announces she already has. And outside the hell, a horse-drawn carriage waits to whisk the performer away.

Meet Franz Liszt, rock star, circa 1840. And get ready for all the glitter, groupies and gaudy good times of Lisztomania.

Get ready for Russellmania, too. Because the writer/director of this erotic/exotic/electrifying fantasy is Ken Russell, whose works include Women in Love, Altered States, Tommy, Crimes of Passion, Gothic, and The Lair of the White Worm. Lisztomania's story centers on the turbulent friendship of renowned composers Liszt (played by Roger Daltry) and Richard Wagner (Paul Nicholas). But that real-life historical footnote is merely the departure point for Russell. He comes at us with surprise after outlandish surprise. A phantasmagorical pipe organ turns into a silver-winged spaceship. The Pope (Ringo Starr) wears cowboy boots. A part-Hitler/part-Frankenstein monster rises from Wagnerian ashes. And the entire sensory Ferris Wheel of a film spins madly to the electrified sounds of Liszt and Wagner (arranged by Rick Wagner).

The incredible "liszt" of frenzied delights goes on and on in this splendiferous extravaganza, newly reissued in surround stereo. Once again, Russell takes us where no no one else does. Or dares. Brace yourself for Lisztomania. Viewers expecting a polite gathering of people neatly posed on Louis XVI furniture are gonna be blown out of their chairs but good.

From the back of the Lisztomania tape I have sitting here on my desk. Scary, ne?