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

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I'm with you.

It probably doesn't hurt that I saw it in 1986, in London, with most of the original cast still in the production (Patti LuPone had left, although Jackie Marks, who replaced her as Fantine, IS on the cast album, just as the taunting factory girl, and we had an understudy Marius, and the children had rotated out), and we were in the 10th row, and I was 16.

Emotionally manipulative? Sure. But I was in tears by "I Dreamed A Dream," and I drove my parents crazy for years afterwards singing "On My Own" in the shower, and I STILL have a hard time getting through "A Little Fall of Rain" without breaking down, and... yeah. I don't care what the musical flaws are, or how repetitive it is, or ANY of that. This show OWNS me.

Eponine's interjections in "A Heart Full of Love" and her lines in the big ensemble of "One Day More" always get me, too.

I have the problem of not being able to see touring company versions of it, though. The London production absolutely spoiled me. The touring company production I saw of it was just PAINFUL... if I have a better chance of hitting Eponine's notes than the singer on stage, forget it.

I didn't mind the Cockney accents, either. It seemed like a reasonable way of signalling the class differences to an English-speaking audience. Possibly less effective for American audiences in general, but my ear's been trained for British accents for a long time.

Is Frances Ruffelle on the CSR, or did they use Lea Salonga for Eponine? Frances Ruffelle's voice is far, far more appealing, to my ear. Warmer, and with an interesting buzz in the lower register that stops short of vibrato but adds depth.

I am not rational about this show. I never will be. If it doesn't grab anyone else the same way... their privilege. But I love it and always will.