The Cast

I met the leads in the cast afterwards in a local bar/restaurant thanks to musical director Derek Barnes.

When I noticed Christer Nerfont (Lucheni) and Cecilie Nerfont Thorgerssen (Elisabeth) holding hands it was Christer who said, "Don't worry, we're married!".

Norwegian Cecilie played Fantine in "Les Miserables" in Karlstad opposite Christer as Valjean. Christer said, "I married her hundreds of times in the show, and now I got to marry her in reality!"
Christer also played Robert in the Björn & Benny (ABBA) musical "Kristina från Duvemåla" in over 200 performances.
Cecilie has a background in singing jazz, but has appeared in numerous shows including "Man of La Mancha" in Oslo.

They had travelled to Vienna over the summer and had visited Schönbrunn & the Hofburg and other places where Elisabeth had lived, and had really researched their parts. Christer had bought a copy of Lucheni's biography in German, and had tried to read it, before realising in "Elisabeth" Lucheni is really the storyteller - it's not the real Lucheni at all.

Patrik Martinsson (Death) was also in the Karlstad production of "Les Miserables", but has an impressive roll-call of appearances including "Jesus Christ Superstar", "Godspell", and "My Fair Lady".
The cast had not seen any other version of "Elisabeth", and Patrik was keen to know how he measured up. I assured him he was excellent. "Does Death kiss Rudolf on the lips in the Vienna version?", he asked. I was pretty sure this was an innovation for Karlstad, and a very effective one.

Both he, Christer, & Cecilie had surfed the Internet for ideas on "Elisabeth" and had seen my Internet site, as well as that of Jennifer Barber.

Also there was Producer Camilla Nordström who told me the theatre had had faxes and e-mails from all over, including many from Japan.

Derek Barnes told me these were the musical stars of Scandinavia, and how disappointed he was that the Scandinavian premiere of "Elisabeth" had had so relatively little press coverage. I complimented him on the excellent musical performance, and the powerful intimate style of the production, for which Ronny Danielsson was responsible.
Derek's next production in the Spring is "Les Miserables" in Gothenburg.