The cast of Les Miserbles perform "One Day More." Photo by Deen van Meer
Do You Hear the People Sing?
Producer Cameron Mackintosh’s 25th anniversary production of Les Misérables opened at the Fox Theatre last night, and it certainly lived up to the hype. With beautiful new staging and scenery, as well as additional material that solidifies the story, this brand new production in many respects outdoes the original.
The classic turntable style of the 1986 set design has been replaced with video effects and projections that move the story along. The scenery, inspired by the paintings of the novel’s author Victor Hugo, is vivid and fresh. The story is grittier and easier to follow. But the glorious, haunting score of Les Misérables remains the same, and the tale of Jean Valjean, set against the backdrop of the French Revolution, continues to be as powerful as ever.
From the first note of the musical’s prologue, both captures the audience and takes its breath away. Peter Lockyer embodies the role of the show’s reluctant hero with passion and eloquence. The cast is a well-oiled machine, with each performance as stunning as the voice behind it. With the never-ending flood of classic musical numbers, from the company’s “At the End of the Day” and “Master of the House” to the heartfelt solos and duets such as “Stars,” “A Heart Full of Love,” and “Bring Him Home,” the show simply never lets up.
Andrew Varela as Javert in "Stars." Photo by Deen van Meer
The cast and crew of Cameron Mackintosh’s new 25th Anniversary Production of Boublil and Schönberg’s Les Misérables, with music by Claude-Michel Schönberg and lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer, is a spectacle not to be missed.
Tickets are hard to come by, but if you can find one, attending this performance of Les Misérables is well worth your time. As Andrew Varela (who plays Inspector Javert) tells Encore Atlanta in the article by Bert Osborne: “If you’ve never seen it before, then what’s wrong with your life?”
Performances run April 24 through April 29 at the Fabulous Fox Theatre. For more information on the show or the Fifth Third Bank Broadway in Atlanta season, please visit Broadway in Atlanta’s website. To read the Atlanta Theater Fans article on the benefits of becoming a subscriber, which is the only way to guarantee seats to a popular show, follow this link. A handful of limited view seats are available at some shows. To get tickets, please visit Ticketmaster.com.
- Christi Whitney
I attend the 4/28 show at the Fox and was so very disappointed in this production. Perhpas I had missed the “still epic” but reimagined verbage about the show. It held nothing of the gravitas, breadth and deeply emotional impact of the original.
The first cue was the stage, which used set pieces to cut down the area to about 1/3 of the full stage. From the beginning, the scene changes, quality of the set pieces and lack of creativity went further and further downhill. The orchestra sounded great, but, alas, the tempos were so fast that there was no opportunity for nuance, for musical punctuation, for emotion. I, too, was dismayed with the changes to the score, libretto and even sequencing of ideas. Did they need to alter the storyline of one of the most successful shows in Broadway and touring history?
Most disappointing was the talent. Not that they were not talented; but, that they were ill chosen to meet the task of the original work. In other words, as others have noted, the cast took on a definite Disney musical feeling, unworthy of the Victor Hugo masterwork.
Honestly, all of these factors forced me into the distinct mindset that I was watching a high school adpatation. How unfortunate for those who will not experience the sweeping epic in its original form and for those who wasted their money to sit through this unsettling imitation.
I saw Les Mis on tour in ’96 or’97 I think and it was awesome. I’ve seen tons of musicals and it remained the best musical I ever saw. After watching the London concert version filmed at the O2 arena (which played nationwide in US movie theaters for one night back in 2010), I was totally spoiled by that show and thought the US touring show would be just as amazing.
I was wrong! I saw Les Mis last year in Nashville, and this show in Atlanta was pretty much the same, but with a different Valjean, Javert, and a few others.
The pacing was too fast, songs felt rushed, you didn’t get to linger with the emotions. Fantine, Eponine, and the Tenardiers were weak in their acting and singing. Adult Cosette also reminded me of a Disney princess! Also did I miss something, or did they just totally rush through the part where Marius and Cosette meet each other and get starry eyed? All of a sudden he was head over heels for her and I was like, wait a minute. When did they even meet?
They cut a whole verse from Castle on a Cloud, and why did little Cosette smile the whole time she sang it? They cut the Little People song from the part where Gavroche was supposed to have sung it.
The staging of Bring Him Home was awkward & distracting, with all the characters staying on stage with Valjean and him propped up on that barricade. And during Empty Chairs at Empty Tables, there were no chairs and tables! In the old version, Marius sang inside the pub and the dead friends were slow motion re-inacting a scene of hanging out in the pub, then they left, leaving the EMPTY CHAIRS AT EMPTY TABLES!
I guess if this was the first time I had ever seen it, I might like it. But after having the 90s version imprinted in my mind, this one just doesn’t cut it. I do think the director and casting has everything to do with it. It was just a rushed version and they didn’t give Les Mis the respect it deserves. Do they think a theatre crowd has such a short attention span that they can’t handle watching a little bit longer musical? I agree that somebody needs to come to their senses and restore the musical integrity. I hate to see the American Idol mentality spill over into theatre. Please let us have our last bastion of quality music and singing!
I also miss the old rotating stage, I think it led to a more fluid transition between songs. Then again maybe if everything hadn’t been so edited and rushed, I wouldn’t miss the rotating stage! Besides, a rotating stage is just cool.
Save your money and go buy the 25th Anniversary concert DVD from the O2 Arena, the cast was amazing, yes even Nick Jonas even though a lot of theater snobs online seem to think he was awful just because he didn’t have an “opera” voice, but I thought he did fine. Not everybody has to sound like an opera singer! It also has a group singing at the end with some of the original cast members, plus the Tenardiers in that version were hilarious, unlike the ones in the US tour who seem either bitterly angry (Miss) or bored (Mr).
I was more than disappointed with the tempo change. I was blown away with the quality of the Valjean’s voice, Javert’s as well. But, the lyrics were so rushed, it seemed everyone was in a race to finish the show. I don’t know if this was just to shorten the production, or what! This adjustment did not do justice to the work, and I do hope someone comes to his senses and restores the integrity of the music. I was very disappointed in Fantine’s death, which is normally a high point. Her voice was beautiful, but I could barely hear the song. I don’t think any of the singers were allowed to give their best performance under the “artist direction” given. (Although the finale did completely rip my heart out, as usual! Beautiful execution!) I have loved this story years before the musical ever came out, and when it did, I was equally in awe. I bought group tickets months in advance so that I could introduce my friends to one of my favorite things. Please, Mr. Producers, restore the show!
I loved it, and I know all the music/words backward, forward, and inside out. I saw the show twice this run. I did notice the cuts and some of the orchestration changes bothered me. Ex: on the barricade, they shaved off several beats of the Guardsman “You at the barricade listen to this!” and “Come to Me” was condensed. I mourned the loss of the sweeping transition into “Look Down” but was relieved that the rumors about the counterpoint in “Confrontation” being cut were proved untrue.
Peter was wonderful, but he still played so young and handsome onstage that I was a bit distracted. He probably still could’ve played Chris in Miss Saigon from the looks of it. I think the gal playing Fantine was the best in the cast. She looked so young and innocent that it was more true to the book that usual, and her voice was just incredible. I was trying to figure out if she was mezzo with low notes or alto with high notes — she just eased down to that G-flat with no effort at all. And the staging for “Empty Chairs” was incredible: So simple, yet so effective. Did they move that song up at least a half step for Max (Marius)? It sure sounded that way to me. I thought Eponine sitting on the bench before “Little Fall of Rain” made little sense and looked kind of awkward.
RonlCul, you are not alone in disliking Cosette’s voice. The gal playing her is part of an apparent casting trend that I call “chipmunk sopranos” — those nasal sopranos with a very fast vibrato. The actor who played Cosette in the Broadway revival had that same sort of voice (and played Maria in West Side Story when it was at the Fox last year), and as I recall, so did the soprano in the O2 concert. It does not look good for those sopranos who are somewhere between legit and operatic, as they don’t seem to be currently cast in shows like Les Mis or West Side where such strong legit sopranos are required! I don’t want to start a flame war, but it honestly does seem to be a trend…one that I find incredibly frustrating and disappointing. I rolled my eyes when Cosette started singing. I may or may not have exclaimed “Seriously?!” under my breath.
Overall, the production seemed more real than it did to me when I saw it in ’98. I recommended it to everyone who would listen. If the sold-out shows continue throughout the tour, it wouldn’t surprise me if the 2nd National Tour gears up pretty quickly after the 1st tour closes.
I’m not sure why people think that Les Miserables is associatd with the French Revolution. That occurred in 1789. The revolution that is depicted in Les Miserables took place.
I was the show on 4/27 at the Fox Theater in Atlanta. I was a bit dissappointed because several of the songs from the original score were omitted or changed and the theatric presention was very limited. Of course I had originally seen the show on Broadway back in the mid-90′s and the stage there was much larger than the Fox, so there was less flexibility in what could be done.
Still, the show was enjoyable. My favorite character has always been Eponine and the actress who starred in that role had a wonderful voice and played the role well.
I would also note that recently I read the complete unabridged version of the Victor Hugo novel and I wish that the musical were more accurate. Some things in the musical just never occurred in the novel and there were many things that were also overly romanticized – but perhaps that is the price that must be paid to attract audience interest.
I wasn’t taken with the reworked production as much as the original. The new staging, sparser, dark with spotlit leads, and the faster pacing, made it feel more like a concert. For me it lacked storytelling. I still think the show has the best music of any show, ever and although the tempo may have been slightly sped up, this show hasn’t changed that.
The first half was always a problem for me with so much material covered in the telling of something like 10 years of Val Jeans life. This production exacerbates that feeling with a pace that felt like a race from one song to the next, the performers must be exhausted after. The night I attended, acting took a back seat to singing, with performers often on an unlit stage with a spotlight on them, some of the emotional impact of some pieces was lost. Though my ear does not enjoy the operatic voices I’ve heard portraying Cosette, the performer on stage the night I attended had a bit of an old school Disney Princess voice I found particularly grating. (I’m sure that’s just me.) The audience cheered after most power ballads so I may well have been in the minority.
This has to be one of the most impressive shows I have seen in a while. I love the music, the new staging and the cast was wonderful.