IF IT WASN'T for a distant cousin in Los Angeles with a penchant for drawing the family tree, French composer Claude-Michel Schonberg would not know that musical genius ran in the family.
'His name is Rondolf Schonberg, the son of one of my distant uncles, and he is fascinated with tracing our lineage,' Schonberg says. 'Somewhere along the line he discovered that the composer Arnold Schonberg was a relative.'
Would that explain his musical talent? 'I don't think so, because my brothers and sisters don't know anything about music at all,' Schonberg says. 'When I was growing up I was the only one in the family who wanted to listen to opera.'
One link is apparent. The Vienna-born Arnold Schonberg, who died in Los Angeles in 1951 and is regarded as one of the most influential composers of the early 20th century, was a no-nonsense man, utterly devoted to his music. And so too is Claude-Michel Schonberg, the straight-faced composer of hit musicals Les Miserables and Miss Saigon.
'I don't do this for fun,' he says. 'Music is not like playing a game, it is something I was chosen to do.'
Schonberg is working on a fresh shot of espresso in The Peninsula hotel lobby when we meet. He is here for the opening week of Miss Saigon, one of Broadway's most elaborate productions, which he penned with lyricist Alain Boublil in 1985.