No light, toe-tapping, feel-good froth in this week's crop of cast albums to explore... it's heavy going and heavy drama, with many rewards of rich music and depth of human emotion. Not for the faint of heart (nor for the heartless).

MARGUERITE
LONDON CAST
First Night Records

Mix the romantic rhapsodic style of French composer Michel Legrand for a story taking place in Paris and the men who wrote the words describing the melodramatic war-torn miseries in Les Miserables, and what do you get? Well, as expected, something French that is melodramatically romantic and wartorn and lovelorn. That's Marguerite, replacing the French Revolution with Nazis and adding tragic lovers to the tragedy of war. The French Alain Boublil lyrics go through the mill of translation (is something lost in the translation? they seem more generic than poetic, more bland than bold, sometimes awkward as if cut to fit) and arrive with English words via Herbert Kretzmer. He has some theater credits and also is known for translating the French words of Charles Aznavour. Boublil, Les Mis-mate Claude-Michel Schönberg and the director Jonathan Kent worked together on the book, and some bits of that are heard on the recently issued cast album of the show which opened in London to mixed reviews.

The grand Legrand melodies, for me, are the main asset here. Though we don't have one overwhelmingly gorgeous, irresistible or aching love theme as he's provided in dozens of movies, there's plenty of the swirling, whirling melodic lines and lush, oversized sweeping strokes he's known for. Romance and passion are not meted out stingily. Quite the opposite: it's more of a tidal wave. But big swaths of music and dramatic gushes of emotion in music need words that match them without just hurling declarations of love or anger or retribution with minimal artfulness. The words should be memorable rather than conversational or repetitive. When the performers declaim them full-voiced and seem to be singing at us (or each other) rather than to someone (especially on a disc player in your room or in your ear), it feels like a lot of sturm und drang harangue. That being said or kvetched, there are pleasures here. There's no denying the romance and earnestness and, admittedly, illicit love and war and death are not to be taken or sung lightly. Stakes are high (many notes are, too.)

Ruthie Henshall and Julian Ovendon plays the oft-tortured lovers, and, though they are strong-voiced for sure with money notes, their characters too often feel one-note. Where's the specificity and nuance, the variation in tone? Forty-year-old married prostitute meets her match and her destiny with her much younger jazz musician (he plays his own piano in character, despite what one reviewer assumed after the London opening). Not much call for lightness or low-key joy as presented here. Oddly, the crisp martial music for the chorus in the oft-repeated march "Day By Day" comes as a relief from the florid, tempestuous singing of soloists. Likewise, a few brief instrumental sections also give us a chance to breathe between the blasts of angst and furtive vows of love, sung at high pitch or the threats of anti-Semitism and retribution. Repeated listenings find the threads of melodic theme and the rich underpinnings of the hard-to-blame Legrand, who didn't have much luck with prior stage musicals Amour recently or the older Brainchild. His film music has been far more fruitful, including Oscar winners/nominees, from Yentl to the sentimental and incidental, and many varied projects (coincidentally, he did a musical version of The Three Musketeers and Kretzmer wrote words to an unrelated stage version). The composer also co-wrote the arrangements and orchestrations (with his musical director/conductor) and they are elegant and rich and textured.

We rarely forget the clouds of war looming, for the cast album includes sirens and gunfire and radio announcements in quick but powerful cameos. There's enough drama and high-flying feeling to make this worth exploring for many musical theater fans. There's much to feast on, especially if you like your musicals more on the serious or operatic side, with music that's meaty rather than a thin broth. Still, it can become relentless with the heavy going and dynamics on full-throttle without a sense that we are getting to really know characters with much uniqueness or warmth or personality. Perhaps it's ominous that the cover art shows us a woman whose face has no features.

On my return visits to the album, I find it frustrating still for the reasons described, but also find that as I accept my disappointment, there are still lush and luscious moments galore and integrity in giving committed performances in this Niagara Falls of a musical piece—flowing, gushing, and very big.

FRANKENSTEIN
OFF-BROADWAY CAST RECORDING
Ghostlight Records

It's intense, it's high drama, it's tension and tremulous torture tautly stretched for a very long time—with maybe a few unintentional giggles that might be prompted by having some uber-dramatic or cliche lines being sung. But what did you expect? It's a musical version of Frankenstein, hewing closely to the source material of the novel in all its gothic glory, and gory details of monstrously human tragedy. Foreboding and grief and anguish are almost constant companions in the musical forms of ominous chords and crescendi and bravura singing and stirring orchestral climaxes. What could have been relentless raging and ranting is relieved by moments of beauty and sincerity in the singing. The score by Mark Baron (music) and Jeffrey Jackson (lyrics; a generous amount of his dialogue is also on the disc) is haunting in two senses of the word: death-shadowed scary and emotionally gripping.

With the mood enhanced and sustained by the underscoring, inclusion of dialogue between and within song tracks, tracks easily flow from one to the next, so the CD listening experience is something like a radio play. Resisting an instinct to stand outside and avoid the full storm of fury and folly, one can throw caution to the wind and give into it and get into its world as much as the cast here does. They clearly commit to taking things seriously and trying (mostly successfully) to avoid overplaying and overwrought performances. It's not a scream-fest or just bravura singing to indicate tortured, mourning or anguish.

The ambience and sensibilities are somewhat akin to musicals we have running through veins and which its leads have on their resumes. Leading man Hunter Foster has Les Miserables in his credits, and some moments in the music strongly echo moments from that score (one in particular may be too close for comfort). As Victor Frankenstein, Foster is impressive not because of a huge soaring voice but because of his ability to eschew the temptations to go for the extremes of self-pity, self-aggrandizement or heartless, thoughtless madman. Theatre fans may know him best from his work with lighter fare, like another fostering of a murderously monster type in Little Shop of Horrors (the revival), but he stretches himself admirably here.

Other thrills 'n' chills heavy musicals may cast their shadows; the score has more in common with Broadway's Jekyll and Hyde than just wisely recruiting one of its leading ladies, Christiane Noll. The soprano of choice does her stuff nobly and is well up to the task, hitting the high notes and high emotions but showing quite a bit of tenderness as her character attempts to soothe, understand and show sympathy for others and reveal her own feelings, too. No self-sacrificing wimp, she holds her own as far as expressing her own concerns as a character. Steve Blanchard plays the Creature, whose physical appearance and changes strike fear but also strike a note of empathy and understanding of the struggle in himself—and by extension, our own. His work here is dramatic, at times riveting and surprisingly three-dimensional against all odds. Singing the role of the father, replacing Eric Michael Gillett from the Off-Broadway cast for the recording, is the welcome and noble deep-voiced Richard White, engendering tenderness and a parental perspective. Of particular pleasurable note is talented, golden-voiced young singer-actor Struan Erlenborn, beautifully but alas too-briefly but expertly appearing as younger brother of the Frankenstein kinsfolk.

Some selections, appropriate as plot-serving segues, are less engaging on return visits than several more fully realized numbers with memorable (not just catchy) melodies. Likewise, the artfulness of the lyrics is uneven—some false or seemingly forced rhymes occasionally mar the proceedings along with some trite phrases, but there are bursts of well-crafted and thoughtful expressions and even some provoking thought. It's not just pushing the obvious buttons, though they do beg to be pushed. The lyrics aren't in the booklet, but are online at a web page www.frankensteinthemusical.com/cdlyrics. You'll get an idea there of how things go, but it's the dramatic dark music that makes it all work—and sing. The composer is one of three men on keyboards in the 11-piece band, and collaborated with Stephen DeRosa on the effective orchestrations. Most of us have room and moods for all kinds of styles of musical theatre, and, though the grand guignol and horror flavor is not my favorite in the Baskin-Robbins of musical theatre tastes, this one as a change of taste does it better than many. For those who like that style best, get ready for a treat and a half.

THE HATPIN
ORIGINAL AUSTRALIAN CAST
White Box Records

From Australia comes an unblinkingly sorrowful but somehow life-affirming and dignified musical, The Hatpin. The human spirit is tested and explored in this tale of poor women forced to temporarily (they assume) give up their children to find work and expect a safer home for their offspring, and tragedy ensues in unexpected and indeed unspeakable ways. Surprises lurk everywhere, with foreshadowing in the usual musical forms of dark chords and tension-filled orchestrations and chanting, ranting groups of singing choruses offering warnings. The mother-child bond and the human-to-human bonds are in the spotlight.

Early-career writers Peter Rutherford (music and orchestrations, conductor, and album co-producer with Richard Lush) and James Millar (lyrics and book) make an admirable debut on disc here, but might benefit from a lesson in "less is more." They tend to drum things into our head with overstatement when they have already effectively made the atmosphere obvious and made their points. Ideas repeat hammer-like and the orchestrations and musical ideas can tend to be heavy-handed and over dramatized with psychological/psychopathic colors, rattling and repetitious when it could be riveting. There seems to be a desire to be Sondheimesque at his most psychologically throbbing in numbers such as the dark storm clouds-brewing orchestrations and relentless singing in the title song that sounds at times like it is being conducted and sung by the Beggar Woman of Sweeney Todd, complete with understandable screams.

This is a well-sung, if occasionally oversung, set of performances by a strong cast. Many will recognize the vivid voice of leading player Caroline O'Connor from her solo CDs and show albums such as the second cast album of Mack and Mabel, as well as movie appearances in Moulin Rouge and as Ethel Merman in De-Lovely, the Cole Porter story from several years ago. Her "Something Like Being a Mother" is a standout solo here. She presents an earthy, dynamic character who befriends a homeless, unemployed very young mother. That key role is sympathetically played by Melle Stewart. She shows skill in both singing and acting—much dialogue is included, giving a rather thorough idea of the storyline and interaction. Nine of the 21 sung numbers include the "company" singing as the main or notable part of the song. Many songs include, in addition to a company of 11, the band's pianist, Luke Byrne, and the show's writers are on the recording doing what's called "additional vocals"—so is Tyran Parke, who played Edward on stage, but his dialogue is taken over here by wordsmith Millar.

It doesn't take long for trouble to rear its ugly head and we rarely get any relief from the tragedies or feared tragedies. Be prepared for death, deceit and dangers, as well as some jail time and plenty of tears for fears. On the plus side, some of this is done with beauty and craft, dazzling in quite a few moments and touching in others. It's all quite well recorded with integrity and swirls of music and whirlpools of angst and sorrow; glimmers of hope and humanity are not lost in the shuffle of the gathering storm clouds. Like female knights on their white horses, our heroines and truth-seekers fight bravely and honorably.

The Hatpin is currently available in the U.S. as an import CD at Footlight.com.

The rest of November brings a rush of new releases and some catch-up items making for many reasons for thanksgiving.

- Rob Lester

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