Les Mis... What's the big deal?
Nov. 21st, 2005 04:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jbsegalSo, 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![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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?
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?
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Date: 2005-11-21 10:03 pm (UTC)A happy exception to this is "O Brother, Where Art Thou", which used the bluegrass music of the Depression and the "old-timey" music that the people of that time were listening to. My father grew up in the midwest hating bluegrass music, but when he saw this movie, he had to say "it really sounds good when it's played on-key".