The musical adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel opened in its English version in London in 1985, and is the second-longest running musical ever (only exceeded by the New York run of the Fantasticks, which lasted 42 years). It will go on hiatus during the fall of 2019 while its theater is renovated, but will start right up again in December. The original French version extends the record back to 1980.
Les Misérables is not the first work by Hugo to be translated to the musical stage. Hugo himself adapted The Hunchback of Notre Dame into an opera version in 1836, with music by Louise Bertin. He changed the title to La Esmeralda, focused more on the gypsy dancer than the hunchback, and gave it a happy ending. The opera was a monumental flop and soon forgotten. Hugo also wrote plays, and several were adapted into splendid and successful operas, the two best-known with music by Verdi: Hernani(which became Ernani)and the ever-popularRigoletto, taken from Le Roi se Amuse, with the location and philandering nobleman changed from France to Italy to avoid censorship.
"Les Miz," with its enduring Cosette logo, taken from the illustration in Hugo's 1862 publication, is known all over the world. It was originally conceived by Alain Boubil (book) and Claude-Michel Schönberg (music) as a French "concept-musical" in 1980, and successfully staged in Paris the same year, though for a limited run. The English-language version was produced by Cameron Macintosh, with its libretto written by Herbert Kretzmer, and subsequently expanded further, keeping about a third of the French book in translation, while most of the musical numbers were retained, though modified. Additional scenes, songs and a prologue were added. There have also been cuts over the years, and restorations too, but the basic structure of the show is retained.
Numerous websites give particulars about both the French and English versions, and both are available in full on you-tube. I recommend the complete symphonic recording for the English score, though it has to be streamed in segments. The Mackintosh production has been translated and produced in many languages--full performances in Spanish and German can also be found on You Tube.
The internet contains a veritable avalanche of blogs and other websites on all aspects of Hugo's novel, the musical, and films. After so much hype and reviews, reactions and commentaries, what more is to be said? Here is some of this writer's own very personal reflections on how well the show conveys the plot and sometimes the essence of the novel.
The musical Les Miserables takes the major incidents of Hugo's sprawling book, dispenses with the digressions, and of necessity with the change in art form, tells the its story through successive episodes, beginning with Valjean's release from his 19-year prison sentence, following many, but not all, of the fits and starts of his journey, and ends with his death in spiritual peace. The entire score is sung, opera-style, complete with recitatives à la Mozart or Rossini, to give many details to advance the plot. Many of its tunes are repeated in the way of Wagnerian leitmotifs, by different characters with different lyrics. The result is a coherent and dramatic whole manages to convey the spirit of Hugo's novel. That said, it's not a classic opera. Many of its songs are not arias but French Euro-pop melodies characteristic of the 1980's; some of its numbers evoke earlier prototypes: "Do You Hear The People Sing" is a modern Marseillaise, here used with some irony, since the uprising of 1832 was in reality pretty small. On the other hand, it still resonates: I heard it this morning on the radio in connection with an ongoing Filipino election campaign. "Master of the House" evokes The Threepenny Opera(particularly, not surprisingly, in the German production).
It's a theatrical necessity that the antithetical characters of Valjean and Javert be established at the beginning, at the time of Valjean's release from his sentence even though, in the novel, Javert doesn't recognize Valjean-the-criminal until he frees Fauchelevant from the overturned cart in M-sur-M. On the other hand, in no musical version is Gavroche identified as a member of the Thernadier family. As a matter of fact, Alain Boubil was inspired to conceive Les Misérables as a musical after he had seen a London production of Oliver, and was inspired by the character of the Artful Dodger as an inspiration for Hugo's urchin. In the musical, Gavroche is a sort of stand-alone symbol of all of the street-orphans of 19th-century Paris.
In the musical, it's the women become the most misérable. Éponine, who had been such a pampered child, becomes a street-waif as her family fails and moves to Paris. The musical omits her sister Azelma altogether. Éponine suffers from unrequited love of Marius, which allows the writer and composers to cast her as the tragic girl, and this sets her up for some terrific belted-out torch-songs (her part in "In My Life" and her solos "On My Own" and "A Little Drop of Rain.")
Fantine is the other victim, aware of what she's lost in "I Dreamed a Dream," and the tour-de-force narration in a single song of the chronicle of her fall ("Lovely Lady,") and her dying lament (which shares a melody with Éponine's "On My Own."
Each of the major characters gets at least one solo-soliloquy that really defines them. Valjean has the most, as appropriate for the principal hero. Most serve not only to define his personality but alto further the story ("What Have I Done,?," "Who Am I?," while "Bring Him Home" is an emotional ballad showing his humanity. Javert declares his personal morality in "Stars," and the final negation of it in the song before his suicide, which invokes portions of "Stars," but more importantly also the melody from Valjean's "What Have I done," effectively contrasting the start of one journey and the end of another.
All the digressive essays and so many of the novel's incidents are cut, both because of theatrical expediency, such as the incident where the fleeing Valjean and Cosette escape vertically from a blind alley, or for the sake of time (Valjean's second imprisonment). There are other scenes which encapsulate a lot of action into small timeframes that really work: for me this includes "Lovely Ladies," mentioned above, "Master of the House," particularly when the long introduction is retained, as it manages to compress the Battle of Waterloo into one line; and "One Day More," in which so many of the story lines, melodies and characters converge, to set up the rest of the plotline.
The epic scene at the barricades provides spectators with the big pile of street and domestic objects that make up the street blockage. The audience shares the space of the insurrectionists. The militia enemy is never seen, but the ominous fanfare that precedes
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| A real barricade in Paris: a daguerrotype from 1848 |
And then, there's the sewer scene with its eerie music that adds to its spooky, dark, sinister atmosphere.
I don't want to go on listing all the songs and how they function; others have done that. I just think that in the end, the musical play works very well in capturing the spirit of Hugo's novel, and I'm intrigued at how many theatrical conventions are used throughout the show. These include recitative, tableaux, traditional solos, and even an apotheosis, when all of the dead protagonists join Fantine as Valjean's moral muse, to see the redeemed old hero out.
A quick word on the 2012 film of the musical: it is good, perhaps better than most movie adaptations of Broadway/London theatrical productions. Some of the cuts from later productions of the stage show (including the explanatory prologue to "Master of the House") happen here too. On the other hand, the flexibility of filmed episodeso allow for a staging of the blind alley scene, though it's not particularly dramatic. A better addition is the actual building of the barricade, with people throwing furniture out of windows, and the staging of both sides of the street battle.
Casting in the film, though be better: Much as I like them both as actors, Russel Crowe is an opaque, thuggish Javert, while for me, Hugh Jackman is a far too youthful and attractive choice for Jean Valjean. Colm Wilkinson, whom I saw in the New York production, really incarnated Valjean for me--and though he played the Bishop in the movie, Jean Valjean he will always remain. The Thernadiers of Helena Bonham-Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen were very funny, but in their burlesquing never showed the darker side of the couple. That may be partially in the nature of the musical comedy tradition, but the late Leo Burmeister managed to juggle both in the Broadway production.
The musical version of Les Misérableshad been the vehicle keeping Hugo's epic tale alive during the last decades of the 20th century and the first of the 21th. And it's still going: If anybody in San Antonio reads this, yet another traveling production will be here Sept 17-22, 2019 and you can get another dose. That is, if you haven't deserted it for Hamilton.
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| My Very Own Sweatshirt, bought in New York in 1987 |
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Wikipedia has a good article on the Musicals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Misérables_(musical)
The complete English symphonic production, with no cuts is available at:
(note that this is a link to the first segment. You then have to play each successive one)
The original French Concept (with stills from the show) version is at:
A list of songs and their correspondences in the French and English versions, though incomplete and in need of checking and revision: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songs_from_Les_Misérables
Erin Kahn's thoughtful analysis of the differences between some texts in the French and English versions:http://woodbtwntheworlds.blogspot.com/2014/08/les-miserables-original-french-concept.html
The whole German Version, performed in Duisberg, in 1999, though somewhat blurry:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pisu16FmCxY (German-Duisberg 1999)
The Whole Spanish Version, Performed in 2011 in Madrid streams at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBf0pGatTvw
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