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3. Der Glockner Von Notre Dame Original Cast Recording�The show has only played in Berlin, unfortunately, so the cast album of the stage adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame in entirely in German. The good news, however, is that an album was indeed recorded, and it can be found online.

With a book by James Lapine (who, among many other things, wrote the book for the musical Into the Woods), the stage version retains much of the original movie material, including the gargoyle characters, here renamed Antoine, Charles, and Loni. Interestingly, the lively song �Court of Miracles� is not in the stage version, though every other song from the movie is here, including the song cut from the narrative and recorded for over the credits, �Someday.� Here called �Einmal,� it is a duet between Esmeralda and Phoebus, with some help from Clopin and a character identified as Menge, soaring into a powerful crescendo reminiscent of the Latin vocals present throughout the movie. Even in another language, it is a powerful and moving piece of music.

As with the stage version of Beauty and the Beast, Alan Menken uses fragments of the film�s underscore to create entirely new songs suited to character and situation, such as in the song �Esmeralda,� one of the best new songs on the recording. Like �Someday,� it too ends with a powerful, soaring, and even rousing choral ending that begs to be played loud. Also interwoven into the songs is the Latin vocal underscoring of the original movie. The CD liner notes boast an impressive thirty-five member chorus (in addition to the nine principal cast members listed), giving the album a filmic scope. Also lending a hand are an astounding nearly fifty musicians (by contrast, the Broadway Beauty and the Beast recording lists thirty-eight). Whereas most film scores adapted for the stage feel adapted on recording, Der Glockner Von Notre Dame sounds lush and full. As a result, even Frollo�s challenging �Das Feuer Der Holle� (�Hellfire� on the movie soundtrack), with its chorus of judges and haunting overtones, satisfies.

The linear notes include full lyrics (in German) with a variety of photos from the production, which reveal a theatrical direction to the piece, happily losing some of the overly literal translation of some Disney stage shows.

4. Aladdin: A Musical Spectacular�Available at the parks (at least at Disneyland where I bought mine), this is the original cast recording of the Disneyland California Adventure stage show. Besides the obvious recording of the classic songs from the original movie, the Aladdin: A Musical Spectacular recording is of interest to Disney fans for two keys reasons.

First of all, Jasmine is played by former Mouseketeer (and member of its spin-off pop group The Party) Deedee Magno, who brought Broadway-cred to the show after appearing in Miss Saigon. Magno has a pretty voice that soars beautifully opposite Aladdin Miles Wesley (who does a fine job on �One Jump Ahead� but is weak during �A Whole New World�).

As a whole, the cast is strong. Like Rafiki before him and Terk after, the narrator gets a gender change for the stage, this time being performed by a woman, Jamila Ajibade. Nick Santa Maria does a solid job in the impossible role of the Genie. On disc, he is appropriately manic without feeling like a copy of Robin Williams. The musical arrangements on the album feel much like those of the film, though they must have been reduced considering the stage scope of the project.

The second reason this recording will be of interest to Disney fans is that it contains a new Alan Menken song not heard elsewhere, Jasmine�s solo �To Be Free,� which not only has music by Alan Menken but lyrics as well. In it, Jasmine reflects on her plight as a person living within a cage and the value freedom holds that wealth does not. Typical of Menken�s music, there�s a pretty melody which perfectly showcases Magno�s sweet voice. Lyrically, it�s an illustration of why Menken has always had collaborators with other projects, as he packs in the lyrics, giving his Jasmine a mouthful to push out. A sample of the lyrics show their lack of poetic flow:

Still, the album�particularly because of �To Be Free��will be a must-have for Disney music collectors.