Dracula: Studio Recording Cast (2011)

Dracula the classic novel by Bram Stoker published in 1897 would appear to have all of the ingredients for a highly successful stage musical. Jonathan Harker who works as a solicitor is travelling on business in Transylvania to help facilitate the move of a mysterious character named Count Dracula. Dracula is shifting to London where he roams by night feasting on the blood of victims and turning them into the undead. It's up to Jonathan and his fiancée Mina and their good friends to stop the evil Count.

What we have here, if you ask me, is a thrilling plot for a script, lending itself to a powerful and romantic score which could range from classical music and operetta to even rock. (There's a reason Jim Steinman writing the score for a musical about vampires seriously works. If you don't believe me, "Tanz der Vampire" has been performed throughout Europe since 1997.) Scenically, there's a great contrast between different locales, from the shadowy worlds of Transylvania, to Victorian London on the cusp of the twentieth century. Not only has Dracula come to London to recruit, but he's quite literally entering a world where the cinematograph is a thing.

Characters like Jonathan and Mina are thrust from their every-day lives into the extraordinary and supernatural. The characters themselves have dramatic possibilities, the villainous Count, Jonathan battling to get home to his fiancée, Mina nurturing Jonathan through the darkest hours of his life, Mina's friend Lucy finding herself caught in the world of the vampires, Dr Seward's admiration and trust in his mentor Professor Van Helsing, and other characters we'll meet along the way.

This should make a great musical. By 2001, Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler had turned the Demon Barber of Fleet Street into one of the most triumphant musicals of all time, with "Sweeney Todd" (1979). Harold Prince the Director would also mount "The Phantom of the Opera" (1986) by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe, one of the longest running musicals ever. Why not "Dracula" too or other similar stories like "The Picture of Dorian Gray" or "The Fall of the House of Usher"?

It was around the year 1979 that student and composer Frank Wildhorn saw the legendary Frank Langella production of "Dracula" on Broadway. This romantic take on the infamous Count inspired Frank to explore the possibility of adapting subjects as musicals like "Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", "The Phantom of the Opera" or "Dracula".

As we know, "Jekyll & Hyde" provided Frank Wildhorn with the platform for an international career as a composer working in musical theatre. His extensive credits include: Svengali (1991), Victor/Victoria (additional music for this 1995 musical starring Julie Andrews), The Scarlet Pimpernel (1997), The Civil War (1998), Dracula (2001), Camille Claudel (2003), Scott & Zelda (2005), Mitsuko (2005), Never Say Goodbye (2006, the first score for the Takarazuka Revue to be written by a Westerner), Rudolf (2006), Carmen (2008), Cyrano de Bergerac (2009), The Count of Monte Cristo (2009), Bonnie & Clyde (2009), Wonderland (2009), Tears of Heaven (2011), Excalibur (2014), Death Note (2015, a Japanese musical version of the famous Manga), Mata Hari (2016), The Revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre (2017 for the Takarazuka Revue), The Man Who Laughs (2018 based on the novel by Victor Hugo), Fist of the North Star (2021), No Longer Human (2021), Reunion (2022 performed at Studio 54 Below in New York), Your Lie in April (2022) and the upcoming Song of Bernadette due to launch in Wisconsin 2023. Frank has also released a CD of his Donau Symphonie in 2022, and 2009’s Bonnie & Clyde just became his first West End production.

You can breathe now. Frank, you are the Energizer Bunny. (Let's get some perspective here, Frank would probably say to a comment like this, because how many musicals did Rodgers write in his lifetime?).

In 2001, Frank in collaboration with Don Black and Christopher Hampton (book and lyrics) and director Des McAnuff, brought "Dracula: The Musical" to the stage for the very first time at La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego. Starring Tom Hewitt in the title role, "Dracula" was enough of a success there to land a run on Broadway three years later.

The timing was a little iffy, since "Dance of the Vampires" had just opened on Broadway and was a catastrophe, right up there with "Carrie: The Musical". "Tanz" had been a celebrated masterpiece in Vienna and Stuttgart where it had been staged in a production by Roman Polanski, but in America it was ruined and in the end withered away in the cold light of day. If "Tanz" had just been left alone, it probably might have become one of the most triumphant entries on the New York stage of the 2000s.

By the time "Dracula" closed at the Belasco Theatre on Broadway, some critics had even been complaining that at least "Dance of the Vampires" hadn't been boring.

I don't really know what happened with the production there, but what I do know is that the studio cast album recorded by Global Vision Records in 2005 and released in 2011, was certainly well worth my time and money. No, I love it.

Listen to these songs. I'm just going to fire them off in order: "Prologue", what a way to begin a score, "Over Whitby Bay", with a haunting melody and lyrics painting us a picture of the world where Jonathan and Mina live, the rousing "Fresh Blood" as Count Dracula rallies together his Vampire Maids, "The Master's Song" sung by the tormented Renfield, "Loving You Keeps Me Alive" a love song taking us into the mind of Count Dracula, "Life After Life" which is the one that made me want to hear this score in the first place, "Mina's Cry" a gorgeous instrumental moment, leading into "Please Don't Make Me Love You" Mina's plea to the vampire and one of the stand out songs.

Listen to Jonathan's "Before the Summer Ends" as he realizes he may have to kill his own wife if she turns into one of the undead. "Deep in the Darkest Night" is sort of this musical's response to "Into the Fire" from "The Scarlet Pimpernel". Some people may find this repetitive. I appreciate that connection. There is also "The Longer I Live", Dracula's solo before the operatic climax with "At Last", Mina and the Count's duet, and "Finale: There's Always a Tomorrow". The one song that didn't really register with me here as much is "The Heart is Slow to Learn". It was later cut, probably owing to the fact that Mina already had a similar song with "Please Don't Make Me Love You" (which did not appear in the Broadway production.)

Vocally, we have one fine impressive cast here. Kate Shindle and Rob Evan lead the way as Mina and Jonathan, followed by James Barbour as the operatic Count, Euan Morton as the plagued Renfield, Norm Lewis as the stalwart Professor Van Helsing, Lauren Kennedy playing Lucy gravitating into the world of the vampires, and an ensemble of performers including Tracy Miller, Christiane Noll, Lynnette Marrero and Margaret Ann Gates. Also some thrilling work from Antoine Silverman and Bernd Schoenhart on "Mina's Cry". Instrument accompaniment is performed by the Valhalla Symphonia (very cool name) conducted by co-producer Jeremy Roberts.

I found this album by pure chance. Owing to the difficulty of trying to find Frank's musicals in Australia, I wasn’t expecting to luck out on this the way I did. Finding this let alone hearing it on CD and reviewing it is a treasure.

There have been several more recordings of "Dracula", including the highly regarded World Premiere Recording from 2008 taken from the production in Graz, Austria, and a recent DVD/CD release of the Original Ulm Cast. If I find those albums, I will review them, after sighing from relief.

Thank you for reading. To life after life,

Ryan.