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winterEven though I got home at 1PM, yesterday was a day of nothing but travel - mainly because I had to get up at 3.40AM, so the rest of the day was spent sleepwalking until it was time to finally go to bed. Today I'm a bit more upright, hence Les Miserables (which deserves more than one entry, so look forward to eventual program scans as well).
This was my first time seeing Les Mis live onstage, but I've got well over a dozen videos, so I'm familiar with the various stagings for it - which never differ that much. I own the 10th Anniversary Concert as well as a good few Japanese cast recordings, which means I know how it can sound good voices as well. I've also read the Victor Hugo book.
I consider it one of the best musicals ever done. It's complicated, not centered on a romantic plotline, and with an ensemble cast that's either a casting director's dream or a nightmare. The orchestrations are lush, and the songs stick in your ears like nothing else. When I heard of the anniversary tour, I was overjoyed at the cast, but also afraid of the reworking. Were they going to mess it up just for the sake of being different?
The moment the curtain opened,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fyrie and I just about fell over. They had a ship! A ship where the prisoners were the rowers! The thing is, that's what gave the galériens their name - the fact that as part of their punishment, they roved on the galéres. The way the ship was done was fantastic, and it made a much better excuse for the sudden freeing of Valjean - they were pulling into port on his last journey.
The orchestrations have apparently been a bit reworked, with added richness, but the main change is in the sets. The revolve is gone, and instead they went for the sliding-doors approach, with sets sliding in and out, opening up like books. (This doesn't always work though - the barricade went kaput the night we were there, which necessitated a rather long technical pause just after On My Own.)
Projections are very en vogue in staging right now, but this show has the second-best I've ever seen - it only loses out to Vienna!Rebecca because of the latter's ingenious use of front projections. A lot of the backdrops are actual drawings by Hugo. But the best ones are the ones that move, especially the sewer tunnels - the descent into them is breathtaking. There's also a great effect as Javert falls, and for subtle effects, I loved the night sky over Javert's favourite bridge, which also made an early appearance in Stars.
The costumes are very nice and flatteringly cut, and they kept those generally the same - Enjolras's iconic waistcoat, Eponine's coat etc. Wigs differ in quality, but mostly because some of the characters aren't supposed to have good hair. Makeup was very good as well. (Did I mention we were smack in the middle of the second row?) The one that stood out was Enjolras's blond curly hair, very true to the book.
And all of the above wouldn't be worth anything without a good cast. Fortunately we got that in spades - here, in order of appearance.
John Owen Jones was my reason for seeing the show. For the last 14 years, he has been THE Valjean, and you can tell he knows the role by heart. There's a balance of the driving anger and the will to do good, with both visible at once - you have to appreciate a hands-on Valjean. Most of all, he has the presence; from the first moment on he's so much larger than life. And don't get me started about the voice, because his is perfection without over-the-top operatic polish. The first thing I did the next day was buy his new CD.
The production needed a strong Javert to balance all this, and Earl Carpenter went for just the right note - where Valjean is a force of nature with all its strength, wildness and kindness, Javert is studied and polished and together. Even facing death, he's utterly in control. And he hates Valjean most of all for making him lose this control. "Dammit, why don't you follow my script??" is a good translation of the scene at the barricade ;)
Those two were just brilliant together, boucing off each other and complimenting each other's performance. There were echoes of Who Am I in Javert's Suicide, and Stars in What Have I Done. And each time they faced each other, sparks flew. Confrontation was my favourite - they gave Javert a real chain, which he cracked like a whip, facing down lion-Valjean and his blond mane. But at the barricade - oh, that was some very forceful pinning against the wall :) I approve. And a reference to Confrontation again, with the rope instead of the chain.
Special mention goes to David Covey, who was on as cover Bishop of Digne. He really is too young for this role, but he was amazingly earnest and sweet-voiced. Full marks for effort (and for being adorable in the ensemble throughout).
Madalena Alberto's Fantine got off to a bad start with I dreamed a dream, but I think that was her attempt at not going the Susan Boyle diva route with that song, not entirely successful in that she ended up rather shrill. She made up for it with the subsequent descent into madness, and her reappearance in the epilogue was haunting and well-balanced.
The Threnardiers rocked, plain and simple. Lynne Wilmot and Ashley Artus left the theatre together later, so that may be personal liking shining through their chemistry :) They were certainly amazingly hands-on, including a very... passionate way of celebrating getting money for Cosette.
There are never any bad kids in Les Mis, so little Cosette, little Eponine and Gavroche were no exceptions :) Some of Little People got cut, but Gavroche still managed to shine through, especially since he got paired up with Grantaire. One of the proudction changes is that his death wasn't shown at all - instead there were gunshots and Grantaire, at the front of the stage, standing still and falling apart at the same moment.
Rosalind James was a sweet Eponine while at the same time projecting strength in a way that reminded me of the book version. She went for a belting take on the songs, with a lot of anger/madness to them, but it worked with her as the primal counterpart to the polished Cosette.
Only Cosette wasn't so polished after all :) I normally consider this the most boring role in a musical ever - your standard Cosette is worse than a standard Christine Daaé, since all she does is stand around and look pretty, without even getting a story arc. Katie Hall forged one for herself, starting from the wilfull (Daddy, I want to know things *stomp*) and going on to the strong (as in, taking care of a seriously PTSD Marius in a caring and very aware way). This is what I would point to as an example of the way women don't have to fight to show strength in fiction.
Marius - the words "Pop Idol" should have scared me, but Gareth Gates went for the throat. He was awkward and boyish and angry, not a moment of sweetness or pathos in sight. He went very much for the acting, and every emotion was so visceral, so true. It's another role that can so easily be sugared up, but instead he went for the throat and got it.
And finally the students. We were missing quite a few, but the ones left put in so much effort that you didn't stop to count them ;) They went entirely for the "they were schoolboys / never held a gun" interpretation, which broke your heart just as Les Miserables should.
But oh, every student scene was the Enjolras and Grantaire show. Jon Robyns actually isn't my Enjolras type - his voice is too high, his song interpretation off from what I like - but I didn't think of that past the first few seconds. He was Enjolras, the Enjolras I loved in the book, the one who believed and yet was so removed from humanity - the Greek god for whom the emotions of mortals were a mystery.
And Grantaire, so utterly crushing on him, so cynical and drunken and soft-hearted. Adam Linstead managed to make it sound true, the way this man would follow Enjolras to the ends of the earth and to the top of the barricade just because Enjolras is Enjolras, and larger than life to him. The end of Drink With Me, with Grantaire breaking down on his knees and Enjolras breaking out of this icy mold for a moment to hug him tightly, warmly - I don't even remember if the Marius verse of the song was in this version or not, because the shipper in me keeled over ;) This staging ships Enjolras/Grantaire worse than I do!
(Incidentally, I spent the rest of the show spotting those two in the ensemble, including before I knew who they were playing. In Master of the House they were a hoot, but Beggars at the Feast took the cake. The Threnardiers were doing their best, but the entire theatre was instead staring at those two liveried slovenly footmen in the background, skipping and lurching and doing the Ministry of Silly Walks followed by proper Russian parade marching. Bad scene-stealing boys. No cookies.)
Surprisingly, the best scene in the entire show didn't feature the leads at all. It was the song I hate, Empty Chairs at Empty Tables, the consummate tear jerker, usually played in the empty ABC Cafe, just to drive the point home.
Instead, it was the stumbling, stuttering Marius jerkily walking the streets of Paris, singing out his anger at the useless way his friends lost his lives. During Turning, the women had carried out and set down candles in glass holders, Polish funeral candles that we place on graves each November 1st in the memory of our dead. Then as Marius sang, the dead students came out and picked them up, their own flames of remembrance. Enjolras turned back and led them in a toast. Then they snuffed out the flames.
My breath was gone.
Handily, the auditorium has a door that lets out directly in front of the stage door - this saved us walking up stairs and then down a hillside ;) Thanks tofyrie's prodding, we ambushed Ashley Artus / Threnardier first - he's an absolutely charming guy. Then Adam Linstead / Grantaire, who looked a bit surprised to get fans, but pleased when I told him how I appreciated the scene-stealing! Rosalind James turned out to be very beautiful up close and out of the Eponine makeup - this lady has some serious charisma.
And John Owen Jones came out with an entourage that actually asked us whether we were waiting for him, then herded him our way ;) He rememberedfyrie's letter, admitted to being a bit tired of going on 14 years with Valjean, and shook our hands as he went on to the other pair of fans. He is that charming up close, like a fuzzy bear. Worth waiting for, definitely.
And from the horse's mouth - after their London stint in October, the anniversary tour will be going to the US, and probably to Europe later on. If it's within any feasible distance of any of you - run, don't walk. Utterly masterful theatre.
This was my first time seeing Les Mis live onstage, but I've got well over a dozen videos, so I'm familiar with the various stagings for it - which never differ that much. I own the 10th Anniversary Concert as well as a good few Japanese cast recordings, which means I know how it can sound good voices as well. I've also read the Victor Hugo book.
I consider it one of the best musicals ever done. It's complicated, not centered on a romantic plotline, and with an ensemble cast that's either a casting director's dream or a nightmare. The orchestrations are lush, and the songs stick in your ears like nothing else. When I heard of the anniversary tour, I was overjoyed at the cast, but also afraid of the reworking. Were they going to mess it up just for the sake of being different?
The tour reworking
The moment the curtain opened,
fyrie and I just about fell over. They had a ship! A ship where the prisoners were the rowers! The thing is, that's what gave the galériens their name - the fact that as part of their punishment, they roved on the galéres. The way the ship was done was fantastic, and it made a much better excuse for the sudden freeing of Valjean - they were pulling into port on his last journey.The orchestrations have apparently been a bit reworked, with added richness, but the main change is in the sets. The revolve is gone, and instead they went for the sliding-doors approach, with sets sliding in and out, opening up like books. (This doesn't always work though - the barricade went kaput the night we were there, which necessitated a rather long technical pause just after On My Own.)
Projections are very en vogue in staging right now, but this show has the second-best I've ever seen - it only loses out to Vienna!Rebecca because of the latter's ingenious use of front projections. A lot of the backdrops are actual drawings by Hugo. But the best ones are the ones that move, especially the sewer tunnels - the descent into them is breathtaking. There's also a great effect as Javert falls, and for subtle effects, I loved the night sky over Javert's favourite bridge, which also made an early appearance in Stars.
The costumes are very nice and flatteringly cut, and they kept those generally the same - Enjolras's iconic waistcoat, Eponine's coat etc. Wigs differ in quality, but mostly because some of the characters aren't supposed to have good hair. Makeup was very good as well. (Did I mention we were smack in the middle of the second row?) The one that stood out was Enjolras's blond curly hair, very true to the book.
The actors
And all of the above wouldn't be worth anything without a good cast. Fortunately we got that in spades - here, in order of appearance.
John Owen Jones was my reason for seeing the show. For the last 14 years, he has been THE Valjean, and you can tell he knows the role by heart. There's a balance of the driving anger and the will to do good, with both visible at once - you have to appreciate a hands-on Valjean. Most of all, he has the presence; from the first moment on he's so much larger than life. And don't get me started about the voice, because his is perfection without over-the-top operatic polish. The first thing I did the next day was buy his new CD.
The production needed a strong Javert to balance all this, and Earl Carpenter went for just the right note - where Valjean is a force of nature with all its strength, wildness and kindness, Javert is studied and polished and together. Even facing death, he's utterly in control. And he hates Valjean most of all for making him lose this control. "Dammit, why don't you follow my script??" is a good translation of the scene at the barricade ;)
Those two were just brilliant together, boucing off each other and complimenting each other's performance. There were echoes of Who Am I in Javert's Suicide, and Stars in What Have I Done. And each time they faced each other, sparks flew. Confrontation was my favourite - they gave Javert a real chain, which he cracked like a whip, facing down lion-Valjean and his blond mane. But at the barricade - oh, that was some very forceful pinning against the wall :) I approve. And a reference to Confrontation again, with the rope instead of the chain.
Special mention goes to David Covey, who was on as cover Bishop of Digne. He really is too young for this role, but he was amazingly earnest and sweet-voiced. Full marks for effort (and for being adorable in the ensemble throughout).
Madalena Alberto's Fantine got off to a bad start with I dreamed a dream, but I think that was her attempt at not going the Susan Boyle diva route with that song, not entirely successful in that she ended up rather shrill. She made up for it with the subsequent descent into madness, and her reappearance in the epilogue was haunting and well-balanced.
The Threnardiers rocked, plain and simple. Lynne Wilmot and Ashley Artus left the theatre together later, so that may be personal liking shining through their chemistry :) They were certainly amazingly hands-on, including a very... passionate way of celebrating getting money for Cosette.
There are never any bad kids in Les Mis, so little Cosette, little Eponine and Gavroche were no exceptions :) Some of Little People got cut, but Gavroche still managed to shine through, especially since he got paired up with Grantaire. One of the proudction changes is that his death wasn't shown at all - instead there were gunshots and Grantaire, at the front of the stage, standing still and falling apart at the same moment.
Rosalind James was a sweet Eponine while at the same time projecting strength in a way that reminded me of the book version. She went for a belting take on the songs, with a lot of anger/madness to them, but it worked with her as the primal counterpart to the polished Cosette.
Only Cosette wasn't so polished after all :) I normally consider this the most boring role in a musical ever - your standard Cosette is worse than a standard Christine Daaé, since all she does is stand around and look pretty, without even getting a story arc. Katie Hall forged one for herself, starting from the wilfull (Daddy, I want to know things *stomp*) and going on to the strong (as in, taking care of a seriously PTSD Marius in a caring and very aware way). This is what I would point to as an example of the way women don't have to fight to show strength in fiction.
Marius - the words "Pop Idol" should have scared me, but Gareth Gates went for the throat. He was awkward and boyish and angry, not a moment of sweetness or pathos in sight. He went very much for the acting, and every emotion was so visceral, so true. It's another role that can so easily be sugared up, but instead he went for the throat and got it.
And finally the students. We were missing quite a few, but the ones left put in so much effort that you didn't stop to count them ;) They went entirely for the "they were schoolboys / never held a gun" interpretation, which broke your heart just as Les Miserables should.
But oh, every student scene was the Enjolras and Grantaire show. Jon Robyns actually isn't my Enjolras type - his voice is too high, his song interpretation off from what I like - but I didn't think of that past the first few seconds. He was Enjolras, the Enjolras I loved in the book, the one who believed and yet was so removed from humanity - the Greek god for whom the emotions of mortals were a mystery.
And Grantaire, so utterly crushing on him, so cynical and drunken and soft-hearted. Adam Linstead managed to make it sound true, the way this man would follow Enjolras to the ends of the earth and to the top of the barricade just because Enjolras is Enjolras, and larger than life to him. The end of Drink With Me, with Grantaire breaking down on his knees and Enjolras breaking out of this icy mold for a moment to hug him tightly, warmly - I don't even remember if the Marius verse of the song was in this version or not, because the shipper in me keeled over ;) This staging ships Enjolras/Grantaire worse than I do!
(Incidentally, I spent the rest of the show spotting those two in the ensemble, including before I knew who they were playing. In Master of the House they were a hoot, but Beggars at the Feast took the cake. The Threnardiers were doing their best, but the entire theatre was instead staring at those two liveried slovenly footmen in the background, skipping and lurching and doing the Ministry of Silly Walks followed by proper Russian parade marching. Bad scene-stealing boys. No cookies.)
Surprisingly, the best scene in the entire show didn't feature the leads at all. It was the song I hate, Empty Chairs at Empty Tables, the consummate tear jerker, usually played in the empty ABC Cafe, just to drive the point home.
Instead, it was the stumbling, stuttering Marius jerkily walking the streets of Paris, singing out his anger at the useless way his friends lost his lives. During Turning, the women had carried out and set down candles in glass holders, Polish funeral candles that we place on graves each November 1st in the memory of our dead. Then as Marius sang, the dead students came out and picked them up, their own flames of remembrance. Enjolras turned back and led them in a toast. Then they snuffed out the flames.
My breath was gone.
After the show
Handily, the auditorium has a door that lets out directly in front of the stage door - this saved us walking up stairs and then down a hillside ;) Thanks to
fyrie's prodding, we ambushed Ashley Artus / Threnardier first - he's an absolutely charming guy. Then Adam Linstead / Grantaire, who looked a bit surprised to get fans, but pleased when I told him how I appreciated the scene-stealing! Rosalind James turned out to be very beautiful up close and out of the Eponine makeup - this lady has some serious charisma.And John Owen Jones came out with an entourage that actually asked us whether we were waiting for him, then herded him our way ;) He remembered
fyrie's letter, admitted to being a bit tired of going on 14 years with Valjean, and shook our hands as he went on to the other pair of fans. He is that charming up close, like a fuzzy bear. Worth waiting for, definitely.And from the horse's mouth - after their London stint in October, the anniversary tour will be going to the US, and probably to Europe later on. If it's within any feasible distance of any of you - run, don't walk. Utterly masterful theatre.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-02 05:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-02 05:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-02 06:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-02 06:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-02 06:09 pm (UTC)I SO can't wait until July now... Reading your review and listening to the vids you posted, and everything... AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
*cue high-pitched squeal and bouncing*
If you hadn't guessed... I am muchly looking forward to when I see it on the 16th of July, XD XD
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-02 06:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-02 06:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-02 06:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-02 06:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-02 06:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-02 06:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-03 01:20 am (UTC)But oh, every student scene was the Enjolras and Grantaire show.
Yay :-) The second time I saw it, Enjolras seemed to have chemistry with no one, and the first time (different company, many years earlier), he seemed to focus more on Marius (I can't complain too much though; he was, uh, very comforting after Eponine died). So I've yet to see a live show where they actually play up the E/G.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-03 05:40 am (UTC)