I'll keep this short, I just picked this up because the price was right and I like gothic musicals.  Well, I have to say this may just end up being my favorite of the Dracula based musicals yet.  Very good and very unique.
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This brilliant (if slightly daunting) electro-opera is more Progressive Rock than Goth. The author, in fact, acknowledges some inflence of Peter Gabriel, and many of the lyrics - particularly on religious issues - are as complex, intellectual, and verbally playful as an early Genesis,  Van Der Graaf Generator, or Peter Hammill album. This definitely requires repeated listenings to appreciate, so it was probably not the best choice for a Broadway show. However, the performances are excellent - although the voices of the actors could perhaps be more distinctive : I found myself mixing them up on my first couple of listenings. Had a libretto / lyrics sheet been included with the CD, this might not have been such a problem. This is a fairly small complaint, though, and if nothing else it does at least encourage attentive listening, which is rewarded. Perhaps you wouldn't expect a vampire-themed opera with a plot faintly reminiscent of "The Rocky Horror Show" to have as much depth and interpretive scope as "The Seventh Seal"... but there you have it.
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I just love vampire musicals, don't you? Call me a weirdo, but it's just too bad that more 'normal' audiences won't appreciate their appeal. Following the emergence of such longtooth productions like Jim Steinman's "Tanz der Vampire," Frank Wildhorn's "Dracula" and Elton John's "Lestat," such an art form has unfortunately been staked and buried by lackluster ticket sales and merciless know-it-all critics. As a result, finding a haunting and memorable cast recording has been a rather difficult task. Thank goodness I stumbled across "Vamp," a thrilling and macabre English opera that was originally performed by New York's Lamb Theatre troupe back in the spring of 2001. This 3-act tragedy is a tangled web of desire and damnation that affects the lives of four characters: Alexandria, a bloodsucking Countess (Beverly Butrie), Carmine, a religious sculptor (John Tedeschi), Rosemary, an shy and innocent bookworm (Brenda Bush) and her significant other Simon, an ambitious stage actor who happens to know the role of Count Dracula by heart (Michael Beneville). The emotional range of the group's harmonius and expressive vocals almost brought tears to my freakish eyes. There are only a couple of minor flaws that urged me to give this double-CD 4 stars. For one thing, since "Vamp" is not intended to be a rousing musical, some parts can be slow-paced. In addition, the small doses of techo and 80's rock electronica seem out of place in the album's aural atmosphere. Finally, since there isn't very much infomation concerning the actual plotline of the play, I had occasionally lost track over what the characters were doing. Still, "Vamp" is a unique piece of work I highly recommend for Goth and Broadway crowds everywhere. Enjoy!
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