Composer, librettist, and record producer Claude-Michel Schönberg is one half of a hit songwriting team, with lyricist Alain Boublil, that is responsible for the theater smash successes Les Misérables and Miss Saigon. The duo first teamed up in 1973 to write Boublil's first musical, La Revolution Française, in which Schönberg played the part of King Louis XVI. The following year, Schönberg recorded an album of original material entitled Le Premier Pas. He teamed up with Boublil again in 1978 to work on the score of Les Misérables, which opened in Paris two years later. The original cast recording won two gold discs by 1981 and the Broadway production that followed garnered two Tony Awards (1987 Best Score, Best Book). Schönberg and Boublil followed up with another wildly successful musical, Miss Saigon, which opened in London in the fall of 1989 and internationally shortly thereafter. The duo's next musical, Martin Guerre, opened in London in the mid-'90s. Schönberg also produced an opera album with the Monte Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra and Julia Migenes-Johnson, and participated in all of the castings for Les Misérables. ~ Joslyn Layne