Dracula: A Chamber Musical (Based on the Novel by Bram Stoker)

Desmond Maley is the music librarian at the J.W. Tate Library,
Huntington College, Laurentian University, and editor of the CAML
Review.

Frankly, I have no idea why this book was published in its current form.
Normally, a musical or opera would be printed as a complete piano-vocal
score. This approach would have been feasible here, since the Dracula
“chamber musical” appears to be of relatively short duration,
although the performance time is not given. Failing that, the
musical’s highlights would be issued. Unfortunately, although six
songs are appended at the back of this book, the reduced score size in
conjunction with the wrong type of bookbinding makes them useless for
performance purposes. Issuing just the spoken and sung words by
themselves also makes it impossible to appreciate the musical
realization. For instance, we are told there are several ensemble
numbers in which the lines cross in contrapuntal style, but there is no
indication of how this was done musically. Nor are there any photographs
or drawings to assist us in imagining how the musical could be staged.

Then there is the subject matter. Surely the vampire theme is
hackneyed, and the tradition from which the Bram Stoker tale comes has
already been mined in masterful style by the likes of Stephen Sondheim
and Andrew Lloyd Webber. I didn’t find that the Ouzounian–Norman
team brought anything new to the equation, although the book is clear
and well-written and the music is good. Ouzounian, in his preface, tells
us that the musical had a successful launch in Halifax followed by a
six-month run at the Stratford Festival in 1999, and that it was
televised by TVOntario as well as in several CBC national rebroadcasts.
If the authors were serious about publicizing their achievement, the
next logical step would have been to release a video or recording. As it
stands, this “Dracula” is only a torso.