Best Les Miserables Cast Recording?

I like the 2010 "Dream the Dream" recording the most.

Obviously it's far far far from definitive due to the later modified material and the cut down LP length but I vastly prefer the original London cast recording over all the others. The orchestrations are waaaaay too synth-heavy but the voices outclass the others so much that I can barely listen to the rest.

If you want completeness the Symphonic is really the only way to go, and the voices are all pretty good there. The movie soundtrack also circles at the top for me because of the orchestrations but the live sung vocals are nearly unlistenable for the most part and the mixing is atrocious.

(Totally my own opinions obviously)

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I'd say go for the Complete Symphonic Recording. Wonderful singers all around, and it has the complete score intact in case you ever wish to listen to the show in its entirety.

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1991 Paris revival. The songs sound a lot better in French.

I can;t settle on one because there are performers in all that really irk my ears. I do like the 10th but it is not complete and the audio levels are way low. I just take out the songs from each I like and put them together to make my own mash-up recording.

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Can anything ever top Ruthie Henshall's 'I Dreamed a Dream'? #bow

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Gurl.

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I don't know if anything tops Ruthie, but I do like video of Debra Byrne from the original Austrailian cast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z19miu6BAm0 and think Randy Graff also might have really been something live. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pOwOCZrqVo
I think they all had extremely intense characterizations, they are my top three with Ruthie #1. I think Ruthie's concert performance in Chelmsford with Jeff Leyton might even be more amazing than she was at the 10th anniversary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmSHk9TB3sI

I agree about the 2010 dreamcast cast album being a good listen too, keeps me company on the long drives. I think it was brilliant that they recorded the show live the atmosphere is kept really spontaneous and dynamic. I loved the faster tempos and think Earl Carpenter and John Owen-Jones are a match that makes magic happen, they have a good chemistry and are both good actors for this role and bring a lot with only audio. The footage you see of them on the tour looks like they were really good live, especially the suicide scene, I am very content that is Earl is coming to Broadway now for a Javert. Will Swenson's a pretty good actor too, but I think Earl is more musical. I also prefer J.O.J to Alfie in the 25th anniversary concert actually.

Can't agree about the movie arrangements. To me they were the most unsatisfying of all. The volume of the orchestra is almost inaudible to accommodate the vocal limitations of the celebrities, you don't hear the nuances of the composition, its like lullaby after lullabye. I understand that some will find this progressive and intimate. I felt however it had the opposite effect of being watered down and uninteresting, like the way the conductor reduced the orchestra so that Nick Jonas could be heard singing Empty Chairs at Empty Tables, only way more extreme. Just me, no hard feelings.

For me it's a toss-up between the original London cast, and the CSR.

The original London cast has the single best Marius ever, Michael Ball, as well as nicely understated recordings of "On My Own" and "Bring Him Home" - two songs that in subsequent recordings strayed into "Oh, this is the big showstopper so I'd better go all OTT on it" territory. Both are supposed to be mostly quietly contemplative, not gut-busting yelling contests.

On the other hand, the CSR has Philip Quast, and those great orchestrations. Unfortunately, it also has an Eponine who does all her singing/speaking phonetically (she's Japanese and I think did not speak any English, so she doesn't really understand what she's saying), and a not-quite-top-drawer Valjean (Gary Morris is OK, but warbles a lot).

And I agree with the poster who doesn't like the movie version - the orchestrations are great, but the singing, argh. I mean, everything's in tune but everybody sounds so thin and squeaky due to the live singing of take after take after take. I can't even listen to "Bring Him Home" because Hugh Jackman sounds like he's in real physical pain trying to reach those high notes for the 75th time. And when you watch it you can see him straining and getting red-faced trying to sing those notes and he ends up YELLING them. Yelling a prayer. Doesn't quite work for me. I'm also not a fan of the way Jackman over-acts his death scene, but that might just be me...

I have a dream where Tom Hooper re-records all the songs in a studio and releases the director's cut with an alternate track so you can listen to either the live or pre-recorded tracks (which I'm sure would mostly be a huge improvement) but I'm sure that'll never happen. Hooper was oddly insistent that everything be sung live, and I don't think it helped the movie at all. But it's what we're stuck with.

Updated On: 3/18/15 at 06:53 PM

OLC for me, then the 10th anniversary concert.

I still have the two-LP vinyl copy of the OLC that I bought in 1987!