Les Miserables DVD

[CaptainCanada]

I bought the new DVD release of the 1995 Les Miserables in concert (10th anniversary) from BBC America, and dedicated a few hours today to watching it with my friend (also a big fan of musicals). I've never had the chance to go to Broadway, and I was looking for a chance to see this one, since it's quite famous. I'm familiar with the original story mainly through the 1990s Liam Neeson film version (which was great).

Very long (and occasionally a bit sparse in terms of communicating what's going on, given the minimal staging, though I think this fairly stripped-down style also has benefits, since props inevitably look pretty fake in this sort of medium), but I thought it was great. Lisa recognized Colm Wilkinson, the lead, from various soundtracks/etc. that she's seen in the past; of course, we both picked out the singing voices of Jasmine/Pocahontas/Mulan as Eponine and Cosette.

In terms of the famous songs, the musical is pretty front-loaded; almost all the really famous ones are in the first arc. My personal favourite of those is "Who Am I?", a brief tour-de-force.

Compared to the other film, it's notable how little Cosette is in the story; she's mostly a sort of MacGuffin (you can see why a lot of fans of the musical are so fixated on Eponine) for other characters, and she doesn't exchange more than a handful of lines with Valjean (and those at the very end).

Anyone else seen this (or other) versions?

 

[NileQT87]

I've read the book (all 1,400+ pages in my copy) and seen the Liam Neeson film.

I have a tape of and attempted to watch the Broadway play and couldn't take it for very long. I'm just not a fan of the stage. Watching The Lion King and Wicked on Broadway was brutal. The various Broadway soundtracks my friend played in her car all the time are even more brutal. However, I do love some of the much older musicals (a completely different kind of music) and I love opera (especially Mozart). Heck, I don't really mind ballet, either. But modern Broadway drives me up a wall. Go figure.

Granted, the Liam Neeson version completely chops out the Thérnardier plot.

Of course, the book beats all.

F.Y.I. The singing voices of Jasmine and Mulan (same voice) are Lea Salonga. And I didn't have to look that up.

 

[McCoy]

I've got the first DVD release. I've seen the musical on-stage as well, but I really enjoy this version as well. Though the stage version I saw had Michael Burgess as the lead, I did see Wilkinson in Phantom. He is quite awesome.

I've been wondering if I should upgrade to the new release. I guess if you didn't have the old one you won't be able to tell me if it's worth it will you?

 

[RandyS]

I don't care for musicals, so I've never seen that, but I have seen both Liam Nesson's 1998 movie and Richard Jordan's 1978 movie. Both versions have some good stuff in them. I also saw Gerard Depardu (sp?) 2000 2 parter, but that one wasn't as good.

The book was great.

But my personal favorite is Orson Welles 1937 radio series. It's a seven part half hour series he did with Mercury Theater on the Air right around the time they did their infamous War of the Worlds show. I've had it on tape from Radio Spirits for ten years, but if you want, you can find it online and burn it to CD (I did).

 

[Sakrysta]

I love this concert. This production more than anything else sold me on Lea Salonga as a vocal performer. Judy Kuhn and Ruthie Henshall get bonus points as well. Beware, though - this concert has a reputation of spoiling one for any of the other recordings of the show - they really did pull the dream cast together, and it shows.

One of the best parts of the whole concert for me is during "Castle on a Cloud." Right in the middle of little Cosette's solo, a light bulb somewhere off stage blew, as in exploded. Scared her to death. She jumped a foot - but she didn't drop a note. I wanted to cheer for her - great job! Great poise!

 

[TGTheodore]

To me, Les Miz has always been a triumph of spectacle over content. Like Phantom and a bunch of other overblown shows of the last 20 years.

Great to watch, filled with "Big Songs", but not much substance.

--Ted

 

[Sakrysta]

^Oh, I so COMPLETELY agree. The concert is really the only Les Mis I have any interest in, with the minor exception of the original French concept album. Phantom has never had any appeal to me beyond the fabulous opening anthem.

I like my musicals smaller and more complex, with the occasional lighthearted fare to lift the mood.

 

[selina]

To me, Les Miz has always been a triumph of spectacle over content. Like Phantom and a bunch of other overblown shows of the last 20 years.

Great to watch, filled with "Big Songs", but not much substance.

--Ted

Really? I'm astonished to hear that. When was younger, I've seen a lot of musicals, and I always considered "Les Miserables" as one of the more profound ones. After all there is a lot of social criticism in it. The fact, that it takes place in the 19th century doesn't change that in my opinion. I admid that I never finished the book, but I think the musical covered a lot of elements from it. It's not only about poverty, despair and revolution. It's also about the effort to change one's live and the injustice that comes with it, if just one person doesn't believe one is capable of changing. Compared with other musicals I always regarded Les Miz as more complex. The same goes for the music.

I have the 10th anniversary collection still on old-fashioned cassettes. But I love them. I also have it on an equally old-fashioned video-tape.

There is a good tv-version of Les Miserables from 1982 with Lino Ventura as Valjean. It's either a 2-part-miniseries or a 4-part-miniseries. It's rather long.

 

[TGTheodore]

But so much of it has been pruned away to make room for the score. Storywise, I prefer the non-musical versions much more.

Again, I really like most of the score, but a lot of the weight has been sacrificed to make space for it.

And, of course, that's just my take on it.

--Ted

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

I saw a touring version of it at Gammage Auditorium here in Tempe, AZ about 8 years ago. It was decent but, vocally, clearly not as grand as the famous 1995 concert. And while the 1995 concert has such minimal staging, it's a show where the music is so strong that any visuals that you can come up with in even the most elaborate production just can't reach the same climax.

I also saw the 1990s movie with Liam Neeson. Geoffrey Rush as Javert is the best part of that version. Still, it's disappointing that Thenardier has been reduced to only one scene and Eponine is gone completely.

Eponine rocks! "On My Own" is the perfect song for an angsty high schooler who feels unrespected and misunderstood by the opposite sex. (Between this & A Tale of Two Cities, revolutionary France was an epicenter of much of my freshman year angst. Now I'm thinking of writing a crossover fanfic where Eponine gets together with Sydney Carton.)