Postscripts to Les Miserables

[jo]

These are the same guys who sang the songs of Valjean & Javert!

Rock stars both

[jo]

[jo]

Many use ONE DAY MORE as a finale song for musical segments relating to LES MISERABLES. That includes Hugh's TheManTheMusicTheShow!

But the film adaptation by Tom Hooper used the more appropriate song for the clarion call to the people --




On a personal basis, this is the song that had the most emotional impact on me from any stage production ever (As in very emotional crying that could not be helped!) -- because of the same sentiment we experienced as a people here on this side of the world a year or so before I first saw Les Misérables on stage!

Jo

[jo]

On a side note - some Broadway theatregoers are disappointed in how Aaron Tveit performs on stage ( not because of his singing because he does have a powerful voice but due to the seemingly lackluster image he projects). I may have to agree somehow, having seen him in Catch Me If You Can & more recently in Moulin Rouge - that there is a lack of emotional heft in his performances. But definitely NOT the case in the film adaptation of LES MISERABLES! He did personify the fiery and willful character of ENJOLRAS very well and he was the compass of the student rebellion to me ( not Marius)! Maybe the role in Les Misérables was what it took to challenge Aaron's acting skills to the fore!


Jo

[jo]

A critic/blogger from India reviews the BBC mini-series but cannot avoid taking potshots at the film adaptation with Hugh Jackman!

[jo]

Was Les Misérables re-screened on TV or via streaming?

A few tweets lately, along these lines --

[jo]

“I had actually done screen tests for ‘Les Mis’ and had met (Hooper) through that process, like 2012,” Swift revealed. “I didn’t get it, but it was such an amazing experience just doing the screen test. And I was obviously like, ‘I’m not going to get this,’ because the other girl was amazing and was on the West End — Samantha Barks; she’s incredible and she fully killed the role and was amazing. … I just had a good time doing the screen tests.”

[JH4HJ]

NOT Hugh - but for those who love the show even when he is not in it . . .

For one night only, Cameron Mackintosh’s spectacular sell-out staged concert version of Boublil & Schönberg’s legendary musical, #LesMizConcert will be broadcast live in cinemas across the UK, Ireland and the United States on Monday 2 December 2019 from the Gielgud Theatre: lesmisconcert.com/ #LesMizRocks

CAST: Valjean - Alfie Boe (John Owen-Jones is the alternate, but it's most likely Boe who will be filmed)
Javert - Michael Ball
Bishop of Digne - Earl Carpenter
Factory Girl - Celia Graham
Fantine - Carrie Hope Fletcher
Mme Thenardier - Katy Secombe
Thenardier - Matt Lucas
Marius - Rob Houchen
Enjolras - Bradley Jaden
Eponine - Shan Ako
Grantaire - Raymond Walsh
Cosette - Lily Kerhoas




More about the production (currently in London)

About five minutes in - a bit of One Day More

[jo]

Many thanks!

I am here for Michael Ball!! My other favorite musical theatre performer and favorite singer!

He was the very first Marius, together with Patti Lupone as the first Fantine. My long fandom for LesMis started when I bought what I thought was the Broadway cast recording which I had just seen in early 1988) and got the UK recording by mistake - and there was this voice with its awesome vibrato singing as Marius …

He also sang the role of Valjean in a special concert presentation for the Queen of England her guest the French Prime Minister at Windsor Castle). When Mackintosh wanted him to repeat his portrayal at the West End and the 25th Anniversary concert, he said NO ( he thought his vocal range was not suitable)...and suggested Alfie Boe instead ( with whom he starred in Kismet for the English National Opera)… Now he is singing Javert! I wouldn't be surprised if he also sings the women's roles - because he did do a recording of I DREAMED A DREAM!

Btw, during the London premiere of the film adaptation of Les Misérables, Michael was there to annotate the proceedings. I remember Eddie Redmayne giving homage to Michael, as the original Marius!

I once talked briefly with Alain Boublil when he was here in Manila. He is very white-haired now...and so is Claude Michel Schonberg! Too sad that Trevor Nunn is at odds now with Cameron M. Trevor created the first English language Les Mis for the Royal Shakespeare Company when the show made its bow at the Barbican! They eventually broght to the West End and to Broadway. It was because Cameron decided to replace him and his assistant John Caird for the pared down version - presumably to cut costs, including the share of Nuun and Caird. Sad!

I hope they release a video of this version - I would like to see Michael in the role of Javert


Jo

[jo]

Ten years after Michael performed the role of Marius, he sang EMPTY CHAIRS AT EMPTY TABLES once again at the 10th Anniversary Concert --




At another time, he sang I DREAMED A DREAM --






And singing BRING HIM HOME --

[JH4HJ]

Nov 1, 2019 20:07:18 GMT -5 jo said:

Many thanks!

I hope they release a video of this version - I would like to see Michael in the role of Javert

You're welcome, Jo. Since it is definitely being filmed (for theatrical broadcast), presumably, there will be a video, but I have not read anything about a release date . . . yet. Hopefully we'll hear something soon. (this was posted on another website)

Here's the website

and Facebook page

 - they're on Twitter too.

[jo]

Look what I found




It actually all started in Paris - in 1980, Les Miserables was first presented as a show but in a different format, at Palais des Sports. It was a major hit but they could not extend it because of the place's other commitments. A concept recording was made. Mackintosh fell in love with it... and eventually inaugurated the first English version in London with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1985! Would you believe that in the first Paris show ( another version, the Mackintosh production translated into French was staged many years later) that they had the role of Valjean as a baritone? Maybe it made more sense for a convict with a deep baritone rather than singing high tenor notes? But Bring Him Home was written for Colm W for the Mackintosh production when the score had been transposed for the Valjean role to suit Colm's tenor range.

Of course the Corden ( aka Cor-dawng, as James prefer to have it pronounced here ) Les Mis version is entirely different

Monsieur Corden -- the Hugo novel of Les Misérables did not happen at the time of the French revolution ( 1789) but was part of a student revolt around 1812, Hugo was partly inspired by a painting of DelaCroix depicting the French Revolution ( Liberty Leading the People - now on permanent display at the Louvre).

Jo

[mamaleh]

Historical inaccuracies notwithstanding, this was a pretty funny Corden segment. I loved the costumes and the army’s wielding French bread. The reactions of the passersby and drivers were hilarious.

Ellen

[jo]

He looks good in the supposed typical French attire - the striped shirt, the red neck shawl, the beret -- I was giggling as he parodied a typical French mime actor. The barricade was so puny ( Lol) which they put up to block one of the streets radiating from the Arc de Triomphe

Jo

[jo]

It seems Michael Ball has been singing STARS in concerts for sometime now -- this was in 2018!



But he will always be Marius to me


Michael, as Marius in the RSC original Les Misérables production ( 1985) singing EMPTY CHAIRS AT EMPTY TABLES.



The most poignant image of A LITTLE FALL OF RAIN!


I saw Michael for the first time on stage in ALWebber's ASPECTS OF LOVE. That was in 1989! Thirty years later, he is still showing off his vocals!

Btw, he and Alfie have been collaborating on a few albums for sometime now. Their working together started when they both starred in KISMET ( Michael as Hajj The Poet...while Alfie was the Prince, his prospective son-in-law in the storyline). Their latest one to be released before Christmas has as its opening song... Haha … The Greatest Show!

I've already listened to it on Spotify. They may have the musicality - Michael's baritone is well-placed but Alfie's tenor notes seem a bit too out of place...

but of course nothing can beat the original -- the initial Whoa...whoa...whoa...and the sound of the prancing horses, before one ringmaster starts whispering " Ladies and Gents... This is the moment you've waited for"


Jo

[jo]

Eddie Redmayne shares a few stories --

www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2013/02/les-miserables-eddie-redmayne-amanda-seyfried-tom-hooper-oscar

Eddie Redmayne on His Low-Key Les Mis Prep and the Human Sacrifice His Brother Was Willing to Make for the Film

By Julie Miller
February 21, 2013

Much has been made about the extreme preparation that Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman underwent for Tom Hooper’s Les Misérablesadaptation. Hathaway shed 25 pounds off her already thin frame, sent her new husband away to achieve the novel’s eponymous misery, and agreed to have her real hair chopped off for authenticity during a musical sequence. Jackman literally sang while bench pressing, quit coffee, consumed up to seven liters of water a day, insisted on flying with a washcloth over his face to keep his vocal cords moisturized, and subjected himself to regular ice baths. So to what inhuman lengths did Eddie Redmayne go to play Marius in the film?

“I did jack shit!,” the British actor joked to us last night at a party to celebrate Les Mis, co-hosted by Vanity Fair and Chrysler, at Eveleigh restaurant in West Hollywood. “There was a moment [on set] when I was sitting with Tom during rehearsal, and we were waiting for Hugh and a few other people. I asked where they were, and he said they were at the gym. He said, ‘You’re the leading man! Why aren’t you in the gym?’ I said, ‘Because I get to wear a costume! And I don’t have go through the hideousness of being emaciated. Why aren’t you in the gym?”

Not to say that the actor—and one of his immediate family members— wasn’t obsessed with the production. “My older brother, James, and I— we had no sort of formal musical background, but when we were little he would sing Jean Valjean and I would sing Javert,” the Tony winner told us. “When I was auditioning for the part, I cared very much about getting [Marius]. But James cared even more than me! He was sending me constant text messages. ‘Have you heard?’ ‘What’s the latest?’ ‘Any news?’”


James was so dedicated to his brother’s project that he even proposed a human sacrifice to Tom Hooper. “James even offered his newborn baby to be baby Cosette in the movie. Literally! He went up to Tom [Hooper] and said, ‘Have my child.’ Tom was like, ‘Uh, there is no baby Cosette in the film. Thanks.”

In the end, Hooper’s dismissal probably worked out best for Eddie’s niece. To create a realistically miserable 19th-century Parisian environment, Hooper reportedly left the stage doors open all night to make sure it was bitterly cold on set, let fish rot for odorous authenticity, and filled a man-made sewer with sludge for Jackman and Redmayne to wade through during Valjean’s escape scene.

“That was the worst day . . . filming the scene in which I’m in a sewer, being dragged by Hugh,” Redmayne recalls. “We were swimming through shit for a day and a half. But I’m not allowed to complain, because whatever I was going through, Hugh had to carry me through it.”

Asked how they made light of the situation—slogging through sewage that production designer Eve Stewart has revealed was in fact facial mud— Redmayne revealed: “Well, the fact that we were singing while covered in shit was pretty funny. The constant singing was quite humorous himself.”

After speaking to Amanda Seyfried—who told us that the extent of her weight-loss preparations for the film was “abstaining from alcohol and foods that were too creamy and sugary . . . nothing close to what Anne did,” we discussed the extreme circumstances of the shoot with Hooper. “Well, we were in a closed-door environment. I tried to make it seem as real as I could,” the Oscar-winning filmmaker said, before cheekily adding that it was not nearly as chilly or smelly as it would have been had the cast filmed on location in a real fish market or an actual sewer. As eager as Hooper had been to make the shoot feel real, however, even he agreed that Hathaway and Jackman went to ridiculous extremes. Of the two, he said that Jackman went further, “not drinking anything for 36 hours so he could get that sunken-cheek-and-pallor effect. That was a bit much. I was so scared for him that I even tried to force him to take a sip of water.”

[jo]

Nothing to do with Les Misérables per se --

More to do with some of Les Mis cast ( Ruseell, Sammy, and Hugh) having fun at Russell's concert at Joe's Pub.

I never saw this number Man in The Mirror, performed by Scott Grimes, with part of the LesMis cast doing backing singer work! Hugh, included!

[mamaleh]

I could tell Grimes had good chemistry with Russell C. way back in '99 in their film MYSTERY, ALASKA. He's pretty good--and often funny--on Seth MacFarlane's sci-fi TV series THE ORVILLE.

Wasn't HJ going to include "The Man in the Mirror" on his never-completed CD back in 2004? I think I recall that as one of the planned recordings. A shame it never happened.

Ellen

[jo]

If you're a great Les Misérables fan, the 10th Anniversary Concert filmed version has been uploaded.

It is arguably the most loved of all concert versions, maybe because it included some of the original stars --

*From the original London production ( the original English version of the stage musical) --
Colm Wilkinson - Valjean
Michael Ball - Marius
Alun Armstrong - Thenardier
Jenny Galloway - Mme Thenardier
Note: Patti Lupone was the original Fantine for the English production but she did not make it to this concert.

*From the original Broadway cast
Michael Maguire - Enjolras ( Jo: I was lucky to catch him when he was still on Broadway for the show)
Judy Kuhn - Cosette

*From the original Australian production
Philip Quast - Javert

*Other stage stars
Lea Salonga - played both Eponine and later on Fantine on Broadway and London
Ruth Henshall - Fantine ( London)

[jo]

Sometimes, many wonder why Hugh's Valjean did not simply sing BRING HIM HOME as a pure prayer.

I think Hugh as Valjean showed more nuance in his feelings towards Marius - there were earlier feelings of jealousy that he would lose Cosette to Marius ( certainly strongly raised in passages from the novel by Hugo)...but as he realized that Marius is the man his daughter loved, his love for Cosette won and he prayed to God that Marius be spared!

[jo]

Aaron Tveit with some songs from Les Misérables in his concert performance --

[jo]

[jo]

[jo]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP31L6AhB3M&feature=emb_err_watch_on_yt




Judge for yourself

Valjean's Soliloquy could have been Hugh's Oscar moment -- most fans cite this as his best musical number ( drama and singing-wise) in Les Misérables!

Even in the scene where the Bishop sides with Valjean - the look of astonishment and dawning perception of what the kind Bishop was doing for him earns dramatic acting highlights for Hugh Jackman.

Too bad the stage musical practically ignores this number, which represents Valjean's first epiphany, the Epiphany of Redemption.

It's sung mostly fast as if they were trying to while away the years as fast as they could -- in contrast to that masterful scene from the movie, where the yellow ticket of leave is thrown to the sky by Valjean…to fly...and sets the scene years later in Paris. Exceptional transition!



Concert-wise, this is how VALJEAN'S SOLILOQUY HAS BEEN presented/sung --


Colm at the Les Misérables 10th anniversary concert:






At #tmtmts, at Madison Square Garden --

[JH4HJ]

Watch familiar faces perform Les Misérables hit Bring Him Home to help celebrate the NHS.

Former cast members of Les Mis, such as Alistair Brammer, Alfie Boe, John Owen-Jones, David Shannon, Ramin Karimloo, Rob Houchen and Fra Fee all perform with the Barricade Boys.