ah, nostalgia

[fox]

I haven't listened to Les Misérables all the way through in years, although I used to know it word for word.  (No kidding.  In high school I could start from any point and sing through to the end of the show, and in big overlapping numbers I could do it for any character.)  This is the original London cast I'm listening to now; loyalty prompts me to say The Original And Best, but i'm not positive about that.  I also have the Complete Symphonic Recording (which is how I know the whole damn show from start to finish) and the original Paris cast -- I've heard the original Broadway version, but never bought it.

When I was a kid I remember my dad wanted to sort of graft the London album and the CSR together, into one recording that had the London cast where there was a recording of that cast (which my parents saw live in 1986, damn them, damn, damn, damn -- live at the Barbican, even) and the CSR for the stuff in between.  In 1988, that would have involved hooking two CD players up to a single cassette recorder, or alternatively making liberal use of the pause button.  Now, of course, I could arrange the tracks in order and burn a CD in about ten minutes.

• Valjean -- there is no better Valjean than Colm Wilkinson, and there is no better recording of his Valjean than this one.  I've heard people say they liked him better on the new york album, and they're just mistaken.  We will not consider Gary Morris.
  
• Javert¹ -- this is Roger Allam, and he's very good, and I like his duets with Wilkinson; but nobody, nobody is like Phillip Quast on the CSR (though he does get a little Dramatic at times -- and when someone's too Dramatic for this material, you know he's gone a little too far).
  
• Fantine -- see, I was raised on Patti LuPone as Fantine, and I knew her in this part before I ever knew her as Evita, even, or as anything else or anything mock-worthy.  Now that I'm older and wiser (and know the pitch-perfect imitation of La LuPone on Forbidden Broadway Strikes Back, by the way), I can see where the Randi Graff performance on the Broadway album has a good deal to recommend it.  I don't care for Debbie Byrne on the CSR; never have.
  
• Marius -- Marius!  Michael Ball!  It's a shame what happened to Michael Ball, isn't it?  He got successful and smug and jowly, in that order, and he's not fun to listen to anymore.  I don't even like him on the CSR -- it sounds like he's holding back.  On the London recording, you can hear him open his mouth and sing, and it's lovely.
  
• Cosette -- Rebecca Caine: yes.  Judy Kuhn: lovely voice, but wrong for the part.  Tracey Shane: no, no, no.  In fact as a teenager I blamed her for the disappointment that was Michael Ball's performance on the CSR; that's how wrong she is.
  
• Eponine -- Frances Ruffelle.  London recording.  Next question.  No, seriously, there should be a picture of this girl in the dictionary under "created the role" and another one under "retired the role".  Her voice is quite nasal and pop-y, but she's so good she convinces you that's what the role calls for.  There will be no Lea Salonga; there will be no Debbie freakin Gibson; Kaho Shimada, the Japanese singer on the CSR, is very good, but she spoke no English and you can often tell, plus see above wrt over-dramatizing this material.
  
• Enjolras -- aha.  See, I like this guy on the London recording, but the real winner as Enjolras is the golden-voiced Anthony Warlow on the CSR.  [pauses for a moment to think about that voice][sighs happily]

I've actually never cared much for Cosette at all, really.  I suppose she's very pretty, and that's what Marius sees in her, which is sad for Eponine -- but I've never properly understood what Eponine saw in Marius, to be perfectly honest, when there was Enjolras right there being about nine times more dashing (and sung by Anthony Warlow into the bargain).  [shrug]  I wonder if there will ever come a day when a singer can use "On My Own" as an audition piece again.  Without the auditors rolling their eyes and groaning Oh god, not ANOTHER ONE, I mean.

Hey, here's the finale -- and with the equalizer set this way, not only can you hear Wilkinson distinctly over the chorus (which is appropriate), but you can also hear Patti LuPone quite clearly.  I've never heard that before.  [pats speakers]

On the Paris recording, entirely properly, Valjean calls Javert vous, and Javert calls Valjean tu (when they are prisoner and warden; later, when Valjean is mayor and Javert is obsessed-police-inspector, they tutoie each other).  The same is true of Fantine and Valjean -- and of Eponine and Marius, which I find lovely and sad.  The French cast is solid -- their Cosette is a little thin-sounding, and their Marius is incredibly nasal, but they're note-perfect -- just the styles don't agree with me.  Also, the French lyrics have different rhyme patterns in a lot of places than the English ones, which always throws me a bit.  Sometimes the French words are a lot better, though, which you can't always expect from stuff in translation; the line in "On My Own" which in English is "the world is full of happiness that I have never known" is, in French, un rêve plein de douceur dont je n'ai jamais eu ma part -- "a dream full of sweetness of which i have never had my share".  That whole number is better in French, actually.

¹  (incidentally, we saw a guy as cmdr. khashoggi in we will rock you whose bio seems to claim that he played javert in the original production and sang the part on the recording -- in fact, he was the original grantaire, a far less significant part, and sang that part on the recording; he must have been promoted to javert at some later date.  he was still, i'm guessing, old enough to be the father of most of the rest of the WWRY cast, however.)

Comments

[ellen-fremedon.livejournal.com]

I haven't listened to Les Misérables all the way through in years, although I used to know it word for word. 

Me too! I only have third-generation dubbed cassettes of the CSR, though. One of these days, I should think of aquiring it-- Phillip Quast is absolutely the best Javert, and for me Les Miserables (musical or book) is basically All About The Javert. (Don't I just have utterly predictable tastes in fictional characters?)

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

if you remind me next time i'm in cleveland, i'll dig out the CSR and burn you a copy.

(i think of your tastes as consistent rather than predictable. [g] but don't you think javert is more hufflepuff than slytherin?)

[ellen-fremedon.livejournal.com]

Absolutely-- but then in some ways, so is Snape.

[jgesteve.livejournal.com]

Sometimes the French words are a lot better, though, which you can't always expect from stuff in translation

Wasn't Les Miz originally a French stadium performance by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg with French Lyrics? So perhaps it ought to be surprising that the English rhyming pattern was so good...

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

there was a french concept album, but the whole thing was revamped by herbert kretzmer for the original london production, and the french production is a translation back into french of kretzmer's stuff. 'cause there's way more of it than of the original french stuff, and whatnot.

[makes mental note to pick up french concept album at some point]

[ellen-fremedon.livejournal.com]

I also have a third-gen dubbed cassete of the French concept album. Much of it, I like less than the London version, but there are some very good parts. (Of course, I can only understand about one word in twenty, and that's if you count 'je' and 'c'est,' so can't make any comments about the lyrics.)

[shezan.livejournal.com]

un rêve plein de douceur dont je n'ai jamais eu ma part

Yeah, well, it helps to have Victor Hugo to steal from...

When I first saw les Miz, which was before its premiere in the UK in a press junket, I hated every minute of it, because I was raised on the book, which I read aged 10, unexpurged & cover to cover in its 1862 edition, with engravings by Doré, which we had at home. (I still have it but the paper falls apart...) My famous prediction was that it would sink without trace, hahahaha. Almost 20 years later I can recognise the music is rousing, even though restricting the whole to a few set pieces from the book and a drawn-out luv affair between that milksop, Cosette, and ce benêt Marius (never was anyone less deserving of his namesake), still seems ridiculous when you think what the RSC can do with 19th-century novels. But I do finally find the musical enjoyable.

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

is that line directly out of hugo? what you said, then. :-) i'm mostly-sorry to say i've never been able to read the novel, in the original or in translation; the 19th century is one period that just plain doesn't agree with me, prose-wise. i have tried. but i get so annoyed with the writers for using so many damn words. (so the first time i saw amadeus and heard the emperor tell mozart there were too many notes -- though he was mistaken, of course [g] -- i laughed and laughed and laughed.)

maybe the show should have been called Quelques Misérables ...

[ellen-fremedon.livejournal.com]

Whereas I read the book (in translation) cover to cover about eight times between sophmore year of high school and sophmore year of college. Yay, multi-chapter digressions on the Paris sewer system!

[wrote-for-luck.livejournal.com]

God I love this post.

I spent quite a bit of my childhood obsessed with Frances Ruffelle as Eponine, and intensely disliking Cosette for being such a drip. Early onset of Mary Sue-ism, possibly.

The best Thenardier I ever saw (who made the role more than comic relief) was in a performance in London last year and I can't for the life of me remember the bloke's name.

[cannons-at-dawn.livejournal.com]

(that's me by the way, too inept to log out and in correctly.)

[chains-of-irony.livejournal.com]

I hated Cosette too - Marius/Enjolras, I say! I can't remember whether the Enjolras on the record cover my parents had was Anthony Warlow, (and can't check now because Dad took the record player when he moved) but all I remember was that he had these brilliant blue eyes in the photos. Then when I finally saw the show, it wasn't him singing it. *kiddie sulk*

Added this post to my memories btw.

[ellen-fremedon.livejournal.com]

Enjolras/Grantaire, in the book at least, is Teh Slashiest Thing Evar. (Pretty much unrequited on Grantaire's part, but oh! the lovely angst. Mmmmmmm.)

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

i can't (as we've seen) speak for the novel, but i can get behind the show being One Great Big unrequited love-polygon. grantaire loves enjolras, who loves marius, who loves cosette -- and eponine is also in love with marius, and surely Those Other Guys With Names fit in somehow (Courferac, Feuilly, Combeferre -- i think that's it for Guys With Names in the musical, but i could be wrong at this remove).

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

i don't know about eyes, because i can't call to mind too many color photos -- but who cares? the point is the voice. you can tell it's anthony warlow if you get goosebumps every single time (understanding that you grew up with this stuff; i mean still, every single time) you hear him sing the bit in "one day more", or the line "let others RISE to take our place, until the earth is! free!"

[happysigh]

[laurakaye.livejournal.com]

The Eponine thing is a lot more understandable in the novel (I love the book to bits AND love the musical to similar bits, but it's entirely different kinds of love). IIRC, the Thenardiers lived next to Marius in nasty little lodgings somewhere, and Marius was kind to Eponine in a sort of giving-charity way, but when contrasted with the way that her horrible father was abusive and nasty to her, plus Marius being hot, she fell hard for him.

The Marius/Cosette thing is still pretty much down to Marius seeing her and going "oooh! pretty! want!" and Cosette having been raised in a convent school and thus thinking that a handsome stranger with whom to have secret meetings is about the bestest most romantic thing evah.

The thing about Marius and Cosette is that even though *they* think their story is all-important, really the only reason either of them is there is to highlight Valjean's nobility and redemption. I think that's one reason why taken as a love story it falls flat- that isn't what it's meant to be at all.

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

I hated Marius. Really. He was such a smug git.

But I loved Les Miserables! I haven't listened to it end to end for years - I don't own a full recording. I bought a tape before I owned a CD player, and played the tape till it broke. And I've read the novel (English translation) three or four times.

Valjean/Javert...

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I saw it in London in 1986 with most of the original cast (Patti LuPone had left, so we had Jackie Marks as Fantine, the kids had rotated out, and our performance that day had understudy Marius), and the London cast recording will FOREVER be the one for me. I have tried seeing it in touring shows and I can't bear to hear the mediocre voices butcher it.

Even at 16, I loved the contrast between Rebecca Caine's Cosette's classical soprano, which I recognized for its skill but found uninspiring, and Frances Ruffelle's Eponine's pop-rock voice, with its buzzing vibrato that was technically a flaw but added SO MUCH to the character.

I drove my parents crazy singing "On My Own" in the shower.

And it was YEARS before I could carry my part of "A Little Fall of Rain" without crying.

My husband prefers the Broadway recording, because that's the version he saw in 1987 or '88. He's nuts.