Search - Various Artists :: Peter the Great

If you liked Les Miserables and Evita, you must hear the original soundtrack recording of Rodgers and Ahern's latest musical Peter the Great. From the Mozart-inspired opening Sunrise on the Moscow River to the final, poignant pop ballad Without Him, Peter the Great is truly an eclectic blend of Broadway-style music sure to please even the most ardent critic. The musical is based on the true story of the early life of Peter the Great of Russia. Peter is only ten years old in 1682 when his brother, Tsar Fedor, dies, setting in motion a turbulent series of events. A successor must be chosen, and it is up to the boyars to decide: the selfish, inept, drunken religious clerics who oppose anyone who tampers with the long held Russian beliefs and traditions-particularly if it enables them to maintain their opulent and decadent lifestyles, sequestered happily away inside the Kremlin walls (Boyars' Celebration). They elect the young Peter Naryshkin tsar, declaring his mother regent, but Peter's power-hungry half-sister Sophia is livid. She spreads a rumor that Peter's family had poisoned Tsar Fedor in his sleep, and the drunken streltsi-Russian soldiers-rally behind her. She stages a coup, massacring dozens of members of the royal family, ingratiating herself with the streltsi, and getting herself proclaimed regent of Russia, consequently banishing Peter and his mother from the Kremlin (Blood for Blood). As Peter grows older, however, she begins to view him as a threat to her power, and she orders her 16-year-old brother and his entire family killed (The Time is Now). After being awoken in the middle of the night and frantically escaping in his nightshirt, Peter finds safe haven in a nearby monastery with hundreds of his followers-boyhood friends whose years of conducting mock warfare would now be put to the test (When the Moment is Right)-and before long a stand-off ensues, the soldiers in a quandary sneaking out of the Kremlin in the middle of the night to join Peter's growing number of followers, and an enraged Sophia declares that anyone caught sneaking off to join Peter would lose his head. This momentarily stops the tide of deserters, until Peter sends word that anyone who does NOT leave the Kremlin to join him, will lose his head, thereby marking the beginning of Sophia's fall from grace, as those she thought were loyal to her, one-by-one declare their allegiance to Peter. (The Downward Spiral) And, when a messenger delivers the news that even the Patriarch, the head of the Orthodox Church, has left Moscow for the monastery, Sophia demands that the messenger be beheaded on the spot-he is saved only by the ironic fact that the executioner cannot be found-for he, too, has already gone to join the forces of Peter the Great. Sophia is eventually captured, tried, and sent to a convent where she will spend the rest of the her natural days (Voices in Your Head) Rounding out the story is Peter's hapless, arranged marriage to the shy, insecure Yevdokia, along with his passion for his vivacious and beautiful mistress Anna Mons, daughter of a German tavern owner in Moscow's foreign quarter (Flame in the Dark; Without Him); and his perpetual struggle against the prejudices of a country that won't permit him to marry the woman he truly loves.