Les Miserables

Patti Lu Pone singing I Dreamed a Dream on the original London Cast Recording.

Master of the House will get stuck in your head.

r1 sounds so loud

R3 It's beautiful

Patti sounds great but she was probably right at her best-by-date to play Fantine in the original London production - almost ten years later she looks way too old in closeup in R1’s video and did she sucker punch a Hee Haw Honey to get her hands on that wig?

It’s a role you could never sing, Audra.

All this over a loaf of bread?

It’s tiresome. It’s too long and there’s too much going on. The lead character evading the police is enough of a story, but throwing in the girl, her mother, the boyfriend, the other girl, the uprising, the thieves - it’s too much.

I’ve never seen this stage play. I didn’t see the movie. I haven’t listened to the soundtrack. Am I an outlier?

R8 Yes, but it a good abridgment of the Hugo epic.

Ive seen it live twice and time flies as you are watching it. I was a fanatic for years but confess I find myself skipping parts not just to listen to my favorite songs. The original cast recording is still the best.

One Day More is a banger as the kids say.

Wonderful. It's the perfect musical. 10/10.

R5 I agree. I think it was interesting she was the only American in the cast.

I’ve probably seen it 15 times.

It is an absolutely perfect show. And that Act 1 closer. Jesus Christ.

The only character I care about is, of course, Éponine. I’d rather see a theatrical production that is focused on her. I saw the following in the Wikipedia article about the character:

[quote] George Saintsbury argued that Éponine is the most interesting character in the novel, but that Hugo, like Marius, did not take enough notice of her:

[quote]The gamin Gavroche puts in a strong plea for mercy, and his sister Eponine, if Hugo had chosen to take more trouble with her, might have been a great, and is actually the most interesting, character. But Cosette—the cosseted Cosette—Hugo did not know our word or he would have seen the danger—is merely a pretty and rather selfish little doll, and her precious lover Marius is almost ineffable.

[quote] All this over a loaf of bread?

I like that the story has serious consequences for stealing, no matter how small the item. If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.

[quote]r12 One Day More is a banger as the kids say.

That’s what they did at the Tonys.

Act One is so sad

Gavroche and Eponine are siblings, R16?

R20 here. Just checked. They are. This is not the case in the musical.

I love this flash mob of a production in Orlando. The Eponine is so great.

Can’t help but to love Les Miz. It’s not perfect, but I occasionally watch the reunion show that was on PBS, I think.

R23 The 10th or the 25th?

I liked the French version much more. Less sentimental, more irony, much more emphasis on the politics and the desperation behind them. There is still some Victorian sentiment, but key characters are not so dripping with self-pity as in the English. Gavroche and Eponine are proper young revolutionaries with a genuinely savage side. The only thing I really miss from it is Empty Chairs at Empty Tables, which was written for the English run. The French lyrics are all online if you have enough French to want to do a comparison.

In the original French version, young Cosette longs for a prince in the sky rather than a castle on a cloud.

R8 - my partner saw it a few times on stage and said there was so much going on that he never got the full story until he watched the film. I could see that.

Some people shit on the film from 10 years ago (?) - but I thought it was very well done, despite Russell Crowe's 'singing'.

I think it's good to watch the film before seeing it live - that's my take at least.

This piece is heads and shoulders over the Andrew Lloyd Webber crapfests - I will never understand his popularity. Phantom and Sunset Blvd are good - but the rest of his shit is almost unwatchable.

R26, she does? Missed that bit.

Maybe I've been influenced by too many other versions, but I though Patti's version in R1 lacked emotion. It just felt like she was singing it to further the story.

Hell, I liked Susan Boyle's version better - seriously.

Maybe that was the way they did it back then and the direction she was given with a new production. It just felt really flat - but of course, this is before these songs became classics and well known.

R24, the tenth. I liked Lea Salonga as Eponine. She also was good when she switched to playing Fantine, was that in the 25th reunion?

[quote]R26 In the original French version, young Cosette longs for a prince in the sky rather than a castle on a cloud.

Prostitution whore.

Saw the Broadway original cast twice. It's perfect.

Amazing.

I wish any number of Sondheim musicals worked as well as a stupid show like ALW's Phantom or Les Miz, but as Jimmy Carter notoriously said, life is unfair.