Composer
Frank Wildhorn and lyricist
Nan Knighton's
The Scarlet Pimpernel began as a 1992 concept album dominated by singer
Linda Eder, whose duet with
Peabo Bryson on
"You Are My Home" was a minor adult contemporary chart entry. Much retooled, a Broadway production opened on November 9, 1997, starring
Douglas Sills in the title role, with
Christine Andreas as the female lead,
Marguerite, and
Terrence Mann as the villain,
Chauvelin. Reviews were devastating, but a cast album was released in February 1998, and despite posting substantial losses each week, the show remained open and was acquired by a new production company. This company revamped the show, bringing in a new director and replacing
Andreas with
Rachel York and
Mann with
Rex Smith, then re-launched it on November 4, 1998.
The Scarlet Pimpernel: Encore is an attempt to address changes in the production by revising the cast album. Basically, this is a reissue of the 1998 disc with four tracks by the new co-stars and, oddly enough, two tracks brought back from the 1992 concept album. Fifteen of the 25 tracks from the cast album are retained; of the other ten, five have been dropped, and several songs have been resequenced. (It should be noted that these revisions do not entirely bring the album into line with the revised stage version.) So, what difference do the changes make in an overall assessment of
The Scarlet Pimpernel? Not much. It remains a relatively lightweight, derivative effort, borrowing from
My Fair Lady,
Man of La Mancha, and especially
Les Miserables.
Smith is an inferior
Chauvelin, while
York is a slightly superior
Marguerite, but still no match for
Linda Eder.
The Scarlet Pimpernel: Encore is hard to justify from any but an economic standpoint. In their liner notes,
Wildhorn and
Knighton make much of the show's fans, but the album requires them to buy a new disc just to get four new versions of songs they already may have one or two versions of. As for the show itself, it finally closed, becoming, reportedly, the most expensive flop in Broadway history, only to launch a national tour. ~ William Ruhlmann
