Les Mis... What's the big deal?

[jbsegal]

So, after The Star Wars Trilogy Musical Edition ganked something like 1/2 its music from Les Mis, I decided it should actually listen to the original.

I borrowed The Complete Symphonic Recording from dancingdeer.

I'm not impressed.

Thoughts: While I'm not much of a fan of opera, so I can't really compare, it really feels to me like 50%+ of the show is recitative and I don't like it.

Related: This is the most un-lyrical musical I've ever heard. Much of the time, it sounds like it wants to be a straight play but someone decided to graft on music.

Yes, musicals often have themes or leitmotifs, it often feels like this show has, alongside the 50% recitative, another 30% made up of the same... 3? 4? songs, reused and reused and reused.

There's not a thing about the recording that evokes 'France' for me. The occasional french phrase feels forced and artificial, especially alongside the cockney accents of the lower-class characters.

The use of synthesizers in the scoring is... anachronistic, in a way I can't let wash over me.

Specific to this recording: I hate Gary Morris' voice/accent. As he's a TX? TN? born country singer, this isn't that surprising.

So, why the heque is this such a popular show? Sure, there are a couple of nice songs, but they're a very small percentage of the whole. Is it totally different live? Really?

Comments

[tamidon.livejournal.com]

I can't stand Les Mis. Worse choice for a musical ever, and I include Elephant! in that(obscure movie reference bonus time)

[luckylefty.livejournal.com]

Just so you know someone appreciates your obscure movie references, that's one of my favorite movies. I think that Streetcar! (obscure TV reference) may rank as even worse than Elephant! and Les Miz.

I also have the theory that Leonard Bernstein once had an argument with someone over what constituted an appropriate subject for a musical, with Lennie on the side of "no subject is inappropriate". The person on the other side of the argument responded by naming the most inappropriate work he could think of for making into a musical...

And that's what inspired Bernstein to write "Candide".

(which I think is a great musical, but a pretty impressively inappropriate novel for musicalization).

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

For me, it's not the subject matter. I'm fine with that. Musical Tragedy is a perfectly valid genre.

I just demand musicality.

[theletterelle.livejournal.com]

He is a real man! Not an elephant!

Can he make it?

*tick, tick, tick*

No, he can't.