Ragtime or Les Miserables- Page 2

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 6/16/09 at 5:35pm

Watching him on the Tony awards, he looked a bit like a lizard that looks dead but flicks out its tongue every now and then to snag a fly.

I don't remember anything about that performance other than Anthony Crivello's hair. Even for the 80s, it was ridiculously HUGE, for a man or a woman. I mean, really.
Les Miserables Tony Performance

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 6/16/09 at 6:17pm

After watching that clip again, I have to admit, I found David Bryant to be rather attractive. At least I think I did. Wait. Nope, it's all gone except Crivello's hair.

[Schmerg_The_Impaler]

Posted: 6/16/09 at 6:21pm

I LOVE Tony Crivello's hair on there!

And David Bryant... he's not BAD-looking, just BORED-looking. Like he's half-asleep the whole time. But I still can't stop watching the "...one more day to revolution" portion of the song. So much that I had to make an avatar out of it!

[EponineAmneris]

Posted: 6/16/09 at 7:12pm

LES MIZ especially since you don't have it already.

Get the Complete Symphonic Recording

[Acaila]

Posted: 6/16/09 at 7:20pm

Oh rofl. Too long since I've seen that vid!
Bryant is rather hopeless and insipid, to put it mildly.
What is up with Ruffelle's facial expressions?!
Are you sure that's Tony Crivello? It looks more like Queen's Brian May!
They also appear to have been joined by Rambo...
I don't hate Javerrence Mann too much in that -normally I can't stand him.
Colm looks soooo young!

[Phantom of London]

Posted: 6/16/09 at 7:25pm

I agree with the people who say go for the 10th anniversary album, it has more on than the other, plus at the end you get a treat of various Valjeans from round the world singing a finale in their own language.

Just so beautiful!

[AndAllThatJazz22]

Posted: 6/16/09 at 7:59pm

I bought them both and I'm definitely more of a Ragtime fan. I just think the score is so sophisticated and complex. I just listen to it and get lost in the music, which is something that I love. I find Les Miz to be a little too corny for me, and the highlights is the OBC... so I'm going to rent the 10th anniversery concert DVD to see if it impresses me. I do like some of the songs in Les Miz a lot, like 'Castle on a Cloud', 'Master of the House', and 'I Dreamed a Dream'... but most of the others just make me think 'well, that is cute'. I don't get sucked in like I do with Ragtime.

[Schmerg_The_Impaler]

Posted: 6/16/09 at 8:49pm

Haha, I think I now know why my friend got offended after he took me to see the Star Trek movie and I said, "... well, that was cute," when it was over!

But yeah, Les Mis is a very eighties show. I'm so glad you like Ragtime-- it is a beautiful score, and I've been sharing it with so many people. The interesting thing about Les Miserables is that different people seem to choose different favorite songs-- for example, "Stars" is far and away my favorite song from the show, and I also love "One Day More" and "Fantine's Arrest" (which isn't on the Highlights, I think).

The danger of a highlights CD, though, is that it only has those big numbers and not the little bridging songs and musical themes that really make the musical what it is.

What do you think of the singers on the two CDs?

Updated On: 6/16/09 at 08:49 PM

[pushdabutton]

Posted: 6/16/09 at 9:10pm

Ragtime

[raulmark]

Posted: 6/16/09 at 9:20pm

I checked iTunes last week for the cast recording of Ragtime and it was a "partial album"...which I don't freakin' understand why....?? Can someone tell me what is missing from the iTunes download that the album contains?
Amazon sells the album, but it's almost $8 more

[AndAllThatJazz22]

Posted: 6/16/09 at 9:46pm

Oh Ms. Schmergie the singing on Ragtime is DIVINE :)

I just listen to it and I'm like 'How do they sing like that!', and then when they singing the group numbers it is breathtaking. I can't even find words to describe it. I

Les Miz, well... SOME of the singing is good, but some of it is just plain awful. I like the Fantine, I think she has a nice voice... the Eponine, OUCH! The Valjean is ok, and some of the male ensemble members can't hit the low notes in the Work Song... Including the Valjean. I really like the Cosette, the young and the old ones. They have really pretty voices. The group numbers are actually pretty good though. I have a feeling I spelled all those names wrong.

Updated On: 6/16/09 at 09:46 PM

[Jon18]

Posted: 6/16/09 at 9:54pm

Both musicals are in my top five. In fact, they very well may be my top two. You can't go wrong with either.

I sorta go through phases of "moments" in the albums that are my favorites. Currently the Ragtime "moment" I'm listening to over and over again is when Coalhouse sings "Sarah come down to me" in the song New Music. It gives me chills every time.

[Schmerg_The_Impaler]

Posted: 6/16/09 at 10:35pm

Yes! That is my favorite part right now, too-- that and the "on the seaaaaaa" in "Journey On." The only cast member I don't love is Younger Brother, and that's because Bobby Steggert was worlds better...

AndAllThatJazz, you actually spelled all of the names right! Congratulations! I was the kid who spelled things "Onjolras" and "Javare."

[Acaila]

Posted: 6/17/09 at 6:39am

My favourite song in Ragtime seems to change like every five minutes. Right now it's He Wanted to Say, but it can be most anything from act one, He Wanted to Say, Sarah Brown Eyes and of course Back to Before.

Les Mis my favourites are Stars, Confrontation and Soliloquoy (oh what a surprise) but I love all the little bits like Upon These Stones and The Final Attack and the oboe solo that can make me cry.

A few years back, I actually made myself a compilation of Les Mis - it had the whole thing so the CSR was probably overrepresented - with my favourite version of every song and eliminating the performances I don't like (seeing as there's at least one or two I don't like on each recording). I think it was something like Colm, Philip, Ruthie, Warlow, Ball, mixture of Eponines, OLC Ensemble, etc. Keep meaning to do it again now I have more boots rather than just official recordings.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 6/17/09 at 11:09am

I like the Fantine, I think she has a nice voice... the Eponine, OUCH!

All I can say is, be glad you weren't in the theatre scene in the late 80s. Frances Ruffelle's Tony-winning performance as Eponine was considered the definitive version and On My Own, sung in the signature Ruffelle style, was the single most performed female audition for YEARS. I don't mind it so much because she was the same Eponine on both the original London and Broadway cast recordings and I was simply accustomed to her voice. But if you don't like Ruffelle's voice, then you probably shouldn't get the original London cast recordings of Starlight Express and Children of Eden. She was quite popular during that period.

And yes, Randy Graff has a beautiful voice. She won the Tony a few years later for City of Angels. Her Fantine was heartbreaking. But I have to say, my favorite Fantine thus far has been Lea Salonga.

[Pippin]

Posted: 6/17/09 at 12:01pm

Ragtime- Better produced, better lyrics, better performances, better sound quality, better music. All around, just better, and not as repetitive as Les Mis.

and this is from someone who loves Les Mis, but, truth be told, I listen to Ragtime A LOT more.

Updated On: 6/17/09 at 12:01 PM

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 6/17/09 at 2:16pm

I probably listen to Ragtime more simply because it is a newer recording tan Les Miz, but I haven't listened to it nearly as many times as Les Miz. Not even a 10th as much, probably. But comparing them really isn't very fair. They are two completely different types of shows in music, structure, period, style and story. But if I was forced to pick one, it is unquestionably Les Miz. If you view the shows from the perspective of when they opened, Les Miz was stronger in almost every way. It was highly influential in the world of musical theatre and went on to become an international mega-hit that has only been rivaled by the likes of Lloyd Webber. The score is repetitive at times, just as is every sung-though show, but less so than say, most of Lloyd Webber's works (especially Phantom of the Opera). At least the repeated themes and motifs were used intelligently and make sense.

Ragtime is arguably one of the great American musical theatre scores, and the Broadway cast recording features a glorious cast. Other than that, I just can't overlook some of the fatal book flaws (I made the mistake of reading the novel first) and the muddled original staging and choreography (the film, though more abbreviated, was far more focused and clear). I do love the beautiful score, but I'm often saddened by the near-miss of what could have been a truly great musical.

[Schmerg_The_Impaler]

Posted: 6/17/09 at 2:34pm

I've also listened to Les Miserables dozens of times more than Ragtime-- but Ragtime is much newer to me. I like different things about both of them, but I agree that Les Miserables is better live.

Mister Matt, did you see the Kennedy Center production of Ragtime?

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 6/17/09 at 3:03pm

Schmerg - No, I saw the Broadway production and the recent Chicago production. The smaller Chicago version worked much better as far as staging is concerned, but since the book hasn't changed, it is still the major weak link for me.

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 6/17/09 at 4:01pm

Mister Matt, I'm curious as to what it is you find fault with Ragtime's book (not trying to instigate).

[Acaila]

Posted: 6/17/09 at 8:42pm

If I were to criticise Ragtime, and bear in mind it's a favourite show of mine, it'd be for the habit that every song ends in a big choral power finish. If I were ever to do the show, I'd be keen to fiddle with the arrangements to downplay that a bit. Les Mis does the little joinup bits of business so well I feel and isn't just one big exhausting number after another. Always makes me a bit sad cos I slag Wildhorn for being constant power ballads but Ragtime can be rather repetitive like that too!

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 6/24/09 at 2:27pm

Dottie - Mainly it was the way the historical figures were used. They had were far more prominent and integral to the story originally. The film version abandoned much of this to create a more focused plot, but the musical tried to straddle the fence and as a result, we had these rather odd fleeting cameos that came off as something of a bubble-gum and spit paste job to try and hold the thing together. Had McNally followed-through with the original structure of the novel and illustrated the more tightly woven interaction with the unnamed family who manages to encounter nearly every famous figure of the period through the use of a narrative plot, it would have made so much more sense than having these people pop in and out of the story as both characters and narrators, and at times, without any sense of real relevance. The rather uneven bipolar staging only made all this worse. In a smaller production, I admit the appearance of the characters did not seem quite as gratuitous and more fully incorporated with the rest of the cast, rather than simply trotted out as human scenery.

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 6/24/09 at 2:34pm

I feel the same way about Les Miserables, actually. The novel is my absolute favorite and to me the musical will always fall short of it in every way, even though I do like the musical.

[Pgenre]

Posted: 6/24/09 at 3:09pm

Neither.

On iTunes buy "Your Daddy's Son" and "Wheels of A Dream" from the OBCR of RAGTIME and "I Dreamed A Dream" from the 10th Anniversay Les Miz Concert and purchase Audra MacDonald's WAY BACK TO PARADISE CD instead.

That's what musical theatre is about.

P

P.S. Rent the 10th Anniversay LES MIZ concert from Netflix if you're interested in the show and then you can either purchase that DVD or the CD of the score if you find you like it.

[Sauja]

Posted: 6/24/09 at 7:10pm

I will say that one of my favorite bizarre pronunciations on any recording ever is Frances Ruffelle's ability to turn the word "just" into "jee-yust" as in, "Jee-yust an old man and his daughter; they live ordinaryyyyyy lives!"

Which I was listening to at the gym about 30 minutes ago.

I love both shows. Ragtime really needs the full recording though. The "highlights" album just doesn't do it justice. I think it makes the show sound fractured and unappealing. Les Miz's highlights album at least gives a better sense of the show overall. This is a hugely subjective opinion.