With rehearsals about to begin for Titanic The Musical: In Concert, Anthony Warlow sat down to talk to Limelight about his latest role of the Captain EJ Smith in Maury Yeston and Peter Stone’s musical adaptation of the White Star Liner’s disastrous maiden voyage. As Warlow says from the outset, Titanic is an ensemble piece. “As they say, the court makes the king,” he says, naming several of the cast assembled with whom he looks forward to reuniting in the rehearsal room. There’s Juan Jackson, whom he first met during his early days with Opera Australia, Martin Croft from Les Misérables, and Johanna Allen who performed alongside Warlow in Dr Zhivago.

Anthony Warlow in rehearsal for Titanic The Musical. Photo © Paul Mulligan

Unlike Yeston’s other hit musical Nine, Titanic makes no attempt to hide the composer’s classical music background. A renowned choral writer and composer of ballet music, Yeston’s commissions include cantatas for Carnegie Hall and the John F. Kennedy Centre for Performing Arts.

“The score is incredibly complex,” says Warlow. “It does sound like the closest thing to a mid-century English opera, and it has that contemporary, classical bent....