Rediscovering Les Miserables

A chorus I sing with recently did a salute to Broadway concert, which was a huge success. I was fortunate to get two solos, including one for "Do You Hear The People Sing?". It was this concert that led me to rediscover Les Mis, a show I had forgotten about for years, and never really got the appeal of.

This was probably because I was too young when I first heard the original cast recording. A lot of the more adult material just flew over my head. In fact, I'm surprised my parents let me listen to it in the first place! Especially with all the prostitutes and smatterings of foul language.

Anyway, I've since bought 3 different recordings on Itunes and Amazon, with my runaway favorite being the 10th anniversary concert at the Royal Albert Hall. To me, there has never been a better Jean Valjean than Colm Wilkinson, though Alfie Boe came pretty close. Anyone who likewise plays Javert has to do a lot to make me forget about Philip Quast (Once again though, Norm Lewis is a close second for me).

What I like most about this show, is that its story is ultimately a hopeful one. Yes, there's a lot of death and despair, and sad songs abound, but what Les Mis does is show us all the true power of love, forgiveness, and the giving of one's self to another. At the same time, it also brutally shows us the futility of war, and the emptiness of hatred, even hatred with good intentions. It also doesn't hurt in my case that I'm a spiritual person, and it talks to me on that level too (I'm an assisting minister at my church).

I don't know if it's true, but I heard that Colm Wilkinson is playing the bishop in a future production, if not already. That would be very fitting indeed. ^_^

As for the upcoming movie...I'm not so sure about that one.

Updated On: 7/12/12 at 03:08 PM

DickDeadEye - Personally I always cringe when I hear they are making a movie out of a Broadway hit musical. I hope this one turns out well but can't imagine it will have the same impact of seeing this show live on stage. Saw it for the first time in London a couple of months ago and loved it.

I have yet to get all the way through the novel.

I look at that book, which is page after page of drudgery and sadness and think: HOW did they ever thing to one: dramatize this, but who said...yeah, I think it should be a MUSICAL? And then make it uplifting!?

I know this isn't a popular opinion on these boards, but I adore Les Miserable. I have to admit, my favorite was my own production of it, well, I was choreographer. (We were among the first high schools to produce this.) The group of kids with which we did this were amazing and incredibly dedicated -- the only way this could posssibly work.

I look forward to another revival in my lifetime.

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I made my way through the book once and doubt I'll ever do so again. (It was worth it for the experience, but not particularly pleasant.) I, too, am impressed with how they adapted it into a musical that never fails to inspire and move me.

I am iffy about the movie, but hope to be pleasantly surprised. Five months to go!

The book is certainly uplifting!! (If you can make it to the end.)

Hugo is a brilliant though verbose writer.

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I want to read the book, but I do not think I could get through it. I could not even get through Gone With the Wind.

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Les Miserables is one of my 3 favourite books in the world

Besides reading it thru 3 or 4 times, I have a copy at work and a copy at home that I can just pick up, open, and start reading wherever it falls. And instantly be drawn into the story and the beautiful characters -- every one so real

My reading copies are falling apart

I can't imagine not loving this book

It can break your heart a hundred times over

I love the musical, and I've seen it 39 times, but the book blows it away

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It looks like this movie is going to integrate parts of the book that the stage musical does not. And even though they can't possibly bring all that much in, I still think it's a very good thing.

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There was a so-so regional production a couple of summers ago in Pittsburgh, and it was the first time I had seen it in performance in 5 or 6 years. I don't love the show -- though I do think there's a lot of good stuff in it -- but for the first time I was acutely aware of how much it's structured like a Greatest Hits version of the novel.

"Here's Valjean. He does this. Here's Fantine. This happens to her. Here's Javert. Here's Valjean and Javert. Say hi to Cosette. And here's the Thenardiers. Here's Valjean again. Now this happens. Now this happens. Now this happens. Now this happens." Et cetera. The writing is so much action and so little character development -- out of necessity -- that the actors do a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of selling the emotional involvement.

I don't think that's so transparent when the show is well-produced and performed, but it does take a little magic to cover that up completely.

To be fair, it's also been a problem with most of the film adaptations.
The 1958 Jean Gabin version does a good job of it, but it is 3 1/2 hours long.

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The book has 365 reasonably short chapters. If you are gonna read it, make it a New Years resolution, start on January first and knock out one chapter per day.

The original French version was even more of a "greatest hits" version of the novel, relying on the trus that the audience knew the basic story (as I'm sure they did)--done as a series of scenes really but not with all that much direct connection between them--so Nunn, Caird, even Kreztmer (whose lyrics I still hate and I wish wasn't the go-to guy for translations of European musicals) had to help re-structure it for audiences who didn't know the novel.

It took me about a year to read the book as a teen (I saw the musical when I was 11 or so). To be fair, I read it in French and while I'm more or less fluent in French speaking and listening wise, I read the language much more slowly. Still, I found it a really moving read, and actually paced myself with the last 100 or so pages because I didn't want the experience to end. But, I admit, when I later read Notre Dame de Paris I just read it in English...

In regards to the novel--I'd love to re-read it (in English...), are there several translations, the way you find with Tolstoy (Anna Karenina is one of my favorite books, but only this past week I decided to tackle War and Peace and the various opinions online about which translation to read--including the ontroversial new one--leave me a bit at a loss), and does anyone recommend one over the other?

And I'm a little surprised nobody, to my knowledge, has attempted to do an epic mini-series adaptation of the piece.