Well the Cast is out:

Thomas Borchert
Edmond Dantes

Sophie Berner
Mercédès

Carsten Lepper
Fernand Mondego

Christoph Goetten
Gérard de Villefort

Karim Khawatmi
Baron Danglars

Peter Kock
Abbé Faria

Kurt Schrepfer
Jacopo

Daniel Berrini
Albert de Morcerf

Barbara Obermeier
Valentine

Ava Brennan
Luisa Vampa

André Bauer
Morrel

Ensemble
Nazide Aylin / Suzanne Carey / Ina Wagler / Simon Eichenberger / Matthias Förster / Jochen Schmidtke / Patrick Stamme
_________________________________________

Honestly...pretty bad choice picking Carsten to play Fernando... Patrick would have been much better. Pitty they can't swap them and send Carsten to Marie Antoinette :P

By the way, question: Wich Morrel is Frank gonna use as a character? The father or the son?
'Cause André is too young to play the father and too old to play the son :blink:

It will be Morrel the father.

Thanks for posting the list.

My pleasure and thanks for the answer :D

Interesting. I'm not familiar with most of the cast. It seems unlikely that they'll do make a recording of this production as well since it's so close to the concept's release (intentionally of course).

I hope they do. After all, "Jekyll & Hyde" and "The Scarlet Pimpernel" had concept albums prior to their original productions. If the CD is any indicator, I think it's my favourite Wildhorn score. I haven't enjoyed a musical like this in A VERY long time.

today is the day


toi toi toi aus Deutschland

Indeed! And lets hope critics don't entertain themselfs bashing it as they are doing with the Vienna production of Rudolf... :rolleyes:

I still hope they produce a CD of this production, in german. After all now Frank has MWB so it would be nice to give the boys some work :P *fingerscrossed*

There are a couple of videos related to the opening at art-tv.ch

That link will take you to the first one, and there's a link below it for the second.

Thanks! It look AMAZING!!! I wished I had time to go to St.Gallen to see this!

For all those who don't understand german, the guests were all amazed by the show. And even Michael Kunze, who IS the reference writter in European Musical Scene said he was amazed...and you basicly can't get better than that!!! :D


:D THE SHOW IS A HIT!!!! :D

Btw, here's a small review http://www.musicalzentrale.de/index.php?se...=2&details=2034 in german. Basicly it praises the show a lot, beeing the weakest point Sophie Berner who playes Mercedes. On a curious note, in the end of the review, the writer says he met Frank at the end of the evening and asked him when would DRACULA return to the German-language Area. Frank smiled at him, talked to his manager and he also smiled. The guy got the feeling he would just have to wait, for something was comming... lets hope so, and lets hope COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO also gets other productions soon! :)

Amazing!

some reviews (in german)

in this one, at the end there are links for photos of the "making off" and Red carpet
http://www.tagblatt.ch/aktuell/kultur/kult...;art624,1281427


http://www.thatsmusical.de/berichte-detail...ater-st-gallen/

http://www.lr-online.de/nachrichten/kultur...art1003,2443169

Videoclip of "Ein Leben lang" german version of "When love is true" available here http://www.musicalclub24.net/cms/produktio...leben-lang.html

A song list is also available here http://www.musicalclub24.net/cms/produktio...lenschweiz.html

Magnificent! Thanks! Do we have an English version of that songlist anywhere?

Not that I've found. I can tell you the names in english though ;)

1 Act
Prolog - Fiat Justitia (let justice be done in Latin)
When love is true
Raise a glass
Story told
I will be there
Every day a little death
Instruction
When we are kings
Pirates - Truth or Venture/Risk
The Treasure (when we are kings reprise)
When the world was mine
Dance the Tarantella
Hell to your doorstep

2 Act
Carnival in Rome (Tarantella reprise)
Ah, women
As we have heard
I know those eyes/This man in dead
The trap/ Too much is never enough
Pretty lies
All this time
The man I used to be
Hell to your doorstep - reprise
Finale - I will be there - reprise

New clip http://www.musicalclub24.net/cms/produktio...-man-hoert.html

"As we have heard / So we heard" ;)

Gorgeous song that should be in a CD of the production!!!!! Just saying...:D

The song list for the production is now available on Frank's site, with English and German titles. Official English title for the track mentioned in the last post : "That's What They Say"

http://FrankWildhorn.com/projects/montecristo/songs.shtml

According to the St.Gallen Theater website, the show will be restaged again in the 2009/2010 season which is indeed great news! :)
(we are still in the 2008/2009 season btw.)

Pictures of the St.Gallen cast and show available here http://www.rolfbock.at/musical/20.htm :D (it also has available photos from Rudolf in Wien and Budapest)

As far as I remember there was no St. Gallen cast recording so far. They produced really excellent shows, but unfortunatley no recordings are available. I think this is a problem of funding, it's a kind of Metropolitan Theater.

Well we were just hoping. We were not really expecting a Gallen CD specially 'cause the Theater never produced a single CD of their shows. We were just hoping that the CD would be made like the Graz Dracula one :P

By the way, there is a Concept CD of Monte Cristo for sale, but it's in english ;)

Hope springs eternal. I'm unaware of expenses of CD productions, and it's a question of marketing, but I assume only a small demand for such a CD.
The only person from the St. Gallen cast which can be heard on the CD is Thomas Borchert.

On the contraire! I think the CD would sell pretty well.
The show has Thomas, Carsten and Andre Bauer and they're all quite famous.
Besides, there's a huge market in Germany and Austria for the german-language Cast recordings, plus all the non-german fans around Europe, in the USA and around the world ;) Proof of that was the sales of the Dracula CD, Rudolf is in the top since it came out and even Carmen which had no european-famous cast member stood on the top for quite a while ;)

Well, to discuss real numbers: Do you really think it's possible to sell several tens of thousands of such a recording? In this case we just have to find a label which is interested in doing a good stroke of business.

Actually Wildhorn has it's own label ;)
It's called Music Without Borders (MWB) and it's a partnership with HitSquad Records ;)

I can't say how many copies it would sell specially 'cause I would need a market study to evaluate that ;) That or have the numbers of copies sold from Frank's other CDs to put up an estimative... but I'm pretty sure it would sell well enough ;)

Well, the concept recording is already on MWB in cooperation with HitSquad. Therefore there would be a conflict of interests if MWB would produce a second Count of Monte Cristo CD.
On the other hand, if the show will forge ahead and become a huge success in Germany, in this case a second cast recording could be possible. But if the show will end its run in St. Gallen next season without any follow-up in Germany, I would not even hope for a German cast recording.

The reference point that I've always heard for professional CDs is that it takes half a million dollars to produce one. Musical theater CDs don't have as large an audience as, say, the latest hip-hop superstars... but there's still some market for them. And MWB has been quite active lately, and that seems to indicate things are going well. Unfortunately, I don't have actual numbers on CD sales.

As with so many things, we'll just have to wait and watch. I do think the existence of the English-language concept makes it less likely that they'd come out with a St. Gallen cast recording right away... it just depends on whether they think there's enough demand for it, and if they can get the money and other logistics together to do it.

One other note I'll make... the Czech cast of Carmen may not be known around Europe, but Lucie Bila is a huge star inside the Czech Republic. I've heard they're expecting that cast recording to go platinum by the end of the year.

Speaking of, I just listened to that album for the first time ("Carmen") and I didn't really like it at all. I hope that's not what the show is really like because remember the "Aida" concept album? Well, I hated "Aida" until I heard the Original Broadway Cast Recording. These sorts of albums tend to ruin the power of great theatrical scores by compromising their quality to fit with what's supposed to be "popular". Anyway, I thought this was a shame because I really enjoyed the "Dracula" and "The Count of Monte Cristo" albums and these scores, along with what I've heard of "Wonderland" and "Havana", are some of Frank's best scores ever.

P.S. Wasn't the actress who portrayed Lucy in the 2005 Prague production of "Jekyll & Hyde" originally meant to portray Carmen? She looks perfect for the part.

Yes I know that Lucy is a huge star in the Czech Republic, but I doubt Czech people would buy the CD at SoM when they have it available in their own country. Which reduces the costumers at SoM to the European fans & American-Wildhorn fans.

I enjoyed the Carmen CD. It's not one of my favourite scores mainly 'cause I'm not much into spanished-tuned shows (well I get spammed with them all the time around here so it's normal lol). I am also not very impressed with Wonderland for the same reasons, but I'll need to hear more from that one to be able to judge.
There are still a couple of great songs and 13 songs I doubt represent the full show.

In the end is really a matter of taste. I prefer Frank's more "classical" scores (Pimpernel, Dracula, Monte Cristo, Rudolf, Cyrano) to the more "modern" ones (Carmen, Wonderland.) Exception goes to Havana which from all I've heard has a great summer-y score with great songs.

I can't really judge from what I've heard of "Wonderland", Frank really seems to be keeping that one under wraps. As far as I know, 5 songs have only ever leaked through to the public and we don't even know if 1 of them is still in the show. I, too, prefer the more classical scores but I also love "Camille Claudel". I think that was ready to go to Broadway and it was even published on the schedule for 2005/06 but, as usual in this depressing industry, things change.

Bring back "Camille Claudel", I say. Make her happen.

And the same goes with "Svengali".

I do hope they keep the Mad Hatter song and Once more I can see in Wonderland but I think soon enough we'll know once the Concept is released (summer is upon us!! :D )

And although I don't really like Camille Claudel I'm totaly for ressurecting Svengali! Of course...it will need new tunes 'cause I think some of them were retooled for other shows.

I just want the world to hear a full arrangement of "Vole Mon Ange". I always blast that song. I think it's wonderful.

I can't see them dropping "Once more I can see" or "The Mad Hatter's Song". The song I was referring to was "Anything can happen" which was mentioned as being part of the show on one of Linda Eder's albums.

Is anybody familiar with the situation in the Czech Republic? I'm unaware of the details on location, but the theatre in St. Gallen offers just about 740 seats, with 10 performances of Der Graf von Monte Christo next season.

The St.Gallen Theater never runs the shows for many days in a row, and normaly adds days.
The Karin Theater (where Carmen is) I think runs the show daily.

The Karlin (Charles) Theater does have a pretty steady performance schedule. Here's a link for their fall dates. Click on "Vstupenky" to see their seating chart.

That means Carmen is comparable to an en-suite production in huge theatres which has in most cases a cast recording. But platinum means 1,000,000 units, and that's really impressive for me.

Yup. Carmen was considered the bigest sucess in Czech musical history. However keep in mind that the distribution of platinum discs depends on the country. It's normaly proportional to the number of inhabitants of a Country. You may be thinking in the German number?

In this climate, you're lucky it's being performed at all!!!!!

Since Peter posted the album will go platinum, I assumed it is according to the Recording Industry Association of America 1,000,000. In Germany the sticking point for platinum status is 200,000, in Austria just 20,000.
Peter, what does your statement mean in numbers referring to the Carmen album?

I actually don't have concrete numbers (you caught me). The news I posted echoed what was posted on BroadwayWorld.com, but they didn't include any specifics. It might actually be some Czech number that they're using... I'll look into it and see if I can find out any more.

Update: I believe we're talking about Czech numbers indeed... according to wikipedia that means seven and a half thousand units for "gold" status and fifteen thousand for "platinum."

This may sound small to those of us in other countries (especially the US), but it's all based on population... so reaching "platinum" status still means they've achieved the same kind of market saturation that they would with that ranking in another country.