Musical Monte Cristo
: Fantastic Combination between Technology and Actors
By Bak Han-byeol, Student Editor
I enjoy cultural experience from listening music to watching plays. Not long ago, I really wanted to watch a special performance. At that time I spotted a placard advertising a musical. The musical is Monte Cristo. The musical was promoted in Gwangju to commemorate the first anniversary of the death of the late president Kim Dae-jung. I thought it was a great chance to watch and reserved a ticket immediately.
As many people know, this musical’s plot comes from a novel The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. Here is the plot: Edmund Dantes, a sailor of ability, who lives in Marseille, France, is framed to be sentenced to be in prison by the villains who schemes an unfair strategy for their own profit. He meets a priest Faria, who helps him with his knowledge and treasure. Finally, he escapes from the jail by taking advantage of Faira’s death and comes back home as a count Monte Cristo. He revenges on the villains and finally whole his family, Monte Cristo himself, his wife Mersedes, and their son Albert are united together.
I do not know the stage set for the original version of the musical premiered in Switzerland last year. The musical I saw here presented a scene of the sea using advanced screen technology. It was the scene where Edmund Dantes falls into the sea, and the scene became spectacular when the transparent screen shows the wild sea. What an amazing technology it is! One other strong point is its beautiful songs. Songs composed by Frank Wildhorn are perfectly matched with the story and expressed fully atmosphere of scenes and emotion of the characters. Frank Wildhorn is famous as a composer of a musical Jekyll & Hyde. I think his masterly composition is the best as expected. I also admired actors’ acting. Especially, Um Ki-joon who was casted for the role of Monte Cristo performed so well that I could literally sense his anger. However, the musical lacks probability when it’s compared to the original novel mainly because many events should be contained in the limited running time of musical. At the end of the performance, I wondered at Monte Cristo’s drastic emotional change. Monte Cristo whose heart is filled with anger suddenly forgives the world and the villains without convincing motif or opportunity. And in one scene, a song and choreography was not be in harmony. The song had a slow tempo but choreography was rather dynamic and quick. I was embarrassed by discord.
In conclusion, I was disappointed at the musical Monte Cristo even though it had some good points. Mostly, the success of a musical depends on only a famous composer and famous actors. If it had a strong plot, I would have enjoyed the performance more. This musical will be performed next March again. If you have a chance to watch it, I suggest that you focus on only stage settings and songs. It will give you different enjoyment of watching a performance. However, the most important thing is that do not have strong expectation before you go there.
박한별 기자
wan_byul@naver.com