Jekyll & Hyde: The Complete Work - The Gothic Musical Thriller (1994 Concept Cast)

 (146 customer reviews)

My introduction to Frank Wildhorn's Jekyll & Hyde was the Broadway cast recording. It was impressive enough with so many terrific songs to motivate me to see the stage play on Broadway. That was something of a disappointment, as the plot seemed a bit incongruous and poorly conceived. Finally hearing the concept recording that resulted in the original Houston play explained a lot. Plainly the producers had to condense and truncate in order to get financing to get the play to Broadway, making numerous compromises along the way. The original concept recording contains enough to indicate that the earlier version of the play was much better organized and well explained, and much closer to Stevenson's story as well.An additional pleasant surprise was the heightened richness in Wildhorn's original concept recording. Many of the songs have more subtlety and imagination in the orchestrations, and some have extra verses, as well as several songs entirely absent from the Broadway...Read more

'Jekyll & Hyde' is, in my opinion, Frank Wildhorn's best work to date. But you wouldn't know it if you listened to the 1997 Original Broadway Cast Recording. The first 'Jekyll & Hyde' recording I ever owned was the Second Concept Cast (1994) starring Anthony Warlow. The composer, Wildhorn, and the lyricist, Leslie Bricusse, wrote an absolutely powerful score in this album; it was perfect. Then they messed with perfection and created the repetitive, and even monotonous, Broadway Cast score. If the creators of "Jekyll & Hyde" wanted to entertain and appeal to the audience, then the score on the Second Concept Cast recording should have been used! Based on the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, 'Jekyll & Hyde' follows the story of a doctor's, Henry Jekyll, struggle to create a world without evil, but when using himself as an experiment he transforms into the epitomy of evil itself, Edward Hyde, and embarks on a creating chaos within London, whilst...Read more

I have to admit-- getting ahold of this recording was no easy task, and at first I had to settle for the Broadway recording to tide me over till this one came. Mind you, the Broadway recording is good in its own right-- but this one is simply... phenomenal! It's been said before, I know, but Anthony Warlow's performance on this recording is AMAZING! If anyone has created the dual role of Jekyll & Hyde, it's him... just listen to "Transformation" or "Confrontation" to hear the stark contrast! Admittedly, one or two songs are skip-worthy... but what amazes me is that they're songs that were KEPT in the broadway version, while some of the best ones ("The World Has Gone Insane" and "I Need to Know".. both give me chills..) were cut. Linda Eder sounds as good on this recording as on the Broadway one, and Carolee Carmello's performance is solid as well-- she has some particularly good acting in the final number on disc two, despite...Read more