Character guide
Gleb
from Anastasia
Gleb is the conflicted Soviet officer pursuing Anya in Anastasia, the 2017 musical by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens.
- Show
- Anastasia
- Broadway premiere
- 2017
- Role
- Supporting
- Music by
- Stephen Flaherty
Gleb: role facts
- Originated on Broadway by
- Ramin Karimloo (2017)
- Notable performers
- Manoel Felciano played Gleb in the 2016 Hartford Stage tryout, and Max von Essen later took over the role on Broadway.
- Voice type and range
- Baritone or tenor; his solo Still spans E3 to A4
- Songs Gleb sings
- The Rumors Never End (with ensemble)
- The Neva Flows (solo)
- Traveling Sequence (with Anya, Dmitry, Vlad and Gorlinsky)
- Still (solo)
- Land of Yesterday (Reprise) (solo)
- Quartet at the Ballet (with Anya, Dmitry and the Dowager Empress)
- Still/The Neva Flows (Reprise) (with ensemble)
Who is Gleb?
Gleb is a Soviet officer tasked with hunting down any surviving Romanovs, a duty made personal by his own father's role in the family's execution years earlier. When his investigation leads him to Anya, his professional obligation collides with a growing, unwanted attraction to her, complicating his sense of loyalty to the new regime.
Unlike the film's more cartoonish antagonist, Gleb is a character created largely for the stage version, giving Anastasia a more grounded political dimension and a genuine internal conflict between ideology and feeling.
Gleb's role in Anastasia
Gleb is a supporting role, though a substantial and dramatically important one, requiring a powerful baritone or tenor voice for numbers like "Still" that reveal his internal struggle between duty and desire. The role calls for an actor who can make a potential villain sympathetic without softening his menace.
Ramin Karimloo originated the role on Broadway, praised for bringing intensity and vocal power to a character built specifically to deepen the stage adaptation. Audiences remember Gleb as one of the more unexpectedly complex antagonists in a modern Broadway musical.
Gleb: frequently asked questions
Is Gleb in the 1997 Anastasia movie?
No. Gleb was created for the stage musical and does not appear in the 1997 animated film, whose villain is an undead, magical version of Rasputin. The musical drops the film's fantasy elements and makes Gleb, a Bolshevik officer, its antagonist instead.
Why does Gleb want to find Anya?
Gleb Vaganov is a Bolshevik officer who first warns Anya against posing as Anastasia, then is ordered to follow her and kill her if she proves to be the real Grand Duchess. His father was one of the soldiers who shot the Romanov family, which makes the mission personal even as Gleb falls in love with Anya.
Does Gleb kill Anya in the musical?
No. Gleb corners Anya in Paris to finish his father's mission but cannot bring himself to shoot her, and the two call a truce. Gleb and the Dowager Empress then each announce that the rumors of a surviving Grand Duchess are over, leaving Anya free to leave Paris with Dmitry.
What show is Gleb from?
Gleb is a supporting character in Anastasia, which opened on Broadway in 2017.
Is Gleb a lead or supporting role?
Gleb is a supporting role, created specifically for the stage musical.
Who wrote the music for Anastasia?
Stephen Flaherty composed the music, with lyrics by Lynn Ahrens.
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