Les Misérables

I didn't see any 25th anniversary CD on iTunes other than the one released last October.

There you go http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/los-miserables-mas-que-musical/id418801702 this one was released last February.

Les Mis movie casting rumors

The previously rumored Jackman as Valjean, with Russell Crowe as Javert, Anne Hathaway as Fantine, and Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter as the Thenardiers. Wow.

The rumor mill on Broadway World is pointing to Lucy Hale as Eponine. I don't know thing one about her acting work but the clips of her singing on YouTube are promising.

~LCD

Variety confirms Crowe for Javert and a projected release date of December 7, 2012: Clickety-Click

Love Crowe as an actor, but can't comment on his singing...

~LCD

That's an ambitious release date if they're not going to start filming til early next year.

Here's a sample of Russell with his band, and you can find much more on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LtF35lWvpQ&feature=related

Pleasant rock voice.

I seem to recall the PotO film had a similar production schedule (began filming in early 2004, released during holiday season)--though given the outcome I don't think I'd hold that up as a model of effective film-making

Thanks for the link--I knew he had a band but couldn't remember the name or if they'd released any recordings. He does have a pleasant timbre--husky but not harsh or overbearing--and I could easily imagine him singing Javert's role. Yeah, I can give him the benefit of the doubt on this.

~LCD

I think Phantom began filming in like August or September of 2003, so it was released 14 or 15 months later.

WHY COULDN'T ALW CARE ABOUT THE FILM VERSION OF HIS MOST SUCCESSFUL WORK LIKE THIS?

I'm not saying already that we will automatically love the Les Mis film, but already it sounds so much more promising. A good director and an A-list cast, so even if they can't sing at least it's for a commercial reason. As opposed to Phantom where the cast who couldn't sing (or act...) are still unknown to most, and yeah, the director was/is most famous for derailing a blockbuster franchise.

He doesn't seem to care about it in any incarnation, at least not caring enough to know what's good for it. You'll notice CamMac is producing both this film and the upcoming Phantom concert, and there's a vastly different level of care for production quality and talent, so you know ALW must be the one pulling the strings more for the concert.

SenorSwanky wrote:He doesn't seem to care about it in any incarnation, at least not caring enough to know what's good for it. You'll notice CamMac is producing both this film and the upcoming Phantom concert, and there's a vastly different level of care for production quality and talent, so you know ALW must be the one pulling the strings more for the concert.

Yes, it seems fairly evident that the casting of the concert is effectively a consolation prize for the LND leads who didn't get to go to Broadway. Saves giving them a settlement for yet another ALW Memorial Pool.

* * *

Anyway, back to Miz...from BBC Radio 4:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b014f3y4

Sue MacGregor brings together the people who created the musical Les Miserables, which has been playing to audiences around the world for more than 25 years.

The show was conceived in 1980 by French librettist Alain Boublil and composer Claude-Michel Schonberg. There wasn't a scene for musical theatre in France at the time so they turned their attention to Britain and eventually found interest in a young established producer of musicals, Cameron Mackintosh.

The early 80s was something of a revolution for musical theatre in the UK. The ground had been laid with the early Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals but it wasn't until Cats in 1981 and then Starlight Express in 1984 that the British began to show they could do musical theatre on a level with their American counterparts.

Cameron approached Royal Shakespeare Company directors Trevor Nunn and John Caird and they formed a groundbreaking collaboration between the subsidized and commercial theatres to bring Les Miserables onto the London stage.

The show opened at London's Barbican theatre in October 1985 and audiences loved it. But the critics were less enthusiastic describing it as 'a lurid Victorian melodrama' and 'witless and synthetic.' Despite the bad reviews the show continued to sell out and it soon moved into the West End and then onto Broadway. To this day the show has played in more than 42 countries worldwide and in 21 languages.

To recall the beginning of Les Miserables and to reflect on its enduring popularity, Sue is joined around the table by producer Cameron Mackintosh, composer Claude-Michel Schonberg, actor Michael Ball, lyricist Herbert Kretzmer and director John Caird.

Critic and ALW pal Michael Coveney reviews the radio programme thus:

One of best new radio programmes is Sue McGregor's Reunion on BBC Radio 4, in which participants on a great project or chapter of political or social history reuinite round a table to discuss the event in hindsight. [...]

Yesterday's edition was devoted to Les Miserables, and didn't dodge any dissent or rancour. First up, Michael Billington (not in the sudio, on tape) sniffily diagnosed Les Mis as part of a Thatcherite global musical theatre ecology, a point more subtly appropriated (in the studio) by co-director John Caird as evidence of people's hunger for compassion and love in a "me first, greed is good" society.

Then there was Cameron Mackintosh and Caird disagreeing about politics in China, and the show's standing there; which opened up the way for Caird to express his and Trevor Nunn's hurt at not being invited to re-visit the show for the 25th anniversary touring production that played at the Barbican (which was, in effect, a pale re-tread of the original, not a re-think).

Cameron replied that, like any great show, Les Mis deserved a creative makeover. To which Caird responded by suggesting a change of producer, too. Ouch. ( )

The critics came in for some flak, and Cameron and Caird were at least agreed on this point: that there is an innate critical snobbery about musicals that just won't go away. Lyricist Herbert Kretzmer was too pained to name the writer who, in the Spectator only the other week, said that Les Mis was a case of the Emperor's New Clothes.

And they all rounded on the Observer critic of the day (my predecessor there, Michael Ratcliffe, though they remembered him, for some reason, as "Michael Hastings" the playwright) who complained about the show for several weeks running.

Fascinatingly, Kretzmer recalled he was stuck for a lyric on "Bring Him Home," with its clutches of three rising notes punctuated by long pauses, until Caird casually let slip, as he left Herbie's house in the small hours after a long session, "Sounds like a prayer to me."

That, of course, is the show's greatest number, though, as Cameron said, there was never a hit song until Susan Boyle sang "I Dreamed a Dream" on a TV talent show nearly thirty years after the premiere.

And Michael Ball, the first Marius, aged just 22, said that the show not only changed his life but also drove him into a major nervous breakdown from which he happily recovered after nine months away.

When Cameron first decided on Trevor Nunn as the director, Nunn had two conditions on which he absolutely insisted: that John Caird came on board as his co-director; and that they would present the musical first at the RSC.

This led to all sorts of rumbles and disputes even within the company, but the fact is that the RSC probably survived in the 1980s because of the annual income of £1m a year from Les Mis. And that pioneering association between the subsidised and commercial sectors is now an everyday fact of life (for good, and for bad).

Callie Daae wrote:How old are Cosette, Marius, and Éponine in the 2nd act?

If you're going book-wise, Cosette and Eponine are 16 during the barricades, and Cosette is 17 when Valjean dies - but it all happens sooner in the musical, so it's safe to assume she's still 16. Marius is 21/22. (Sorry for the late reply, but I was browsing through the thread and didn't notice anyone reply!!)

SenorSwanky wrote:He doesn't seem to care about it in any incarnation, at least not caring enough to know what's good for it. You'll notice CamMac is producing both this film and the upcoming Phantom concert, and there's a vastly different level of care for production quality and talent, so you know ALW must be the one pulling the strings more for the concert.

Yep. I really believe if it weren't for Cameron Mackintosh and Hal Prince POTO would have been a campy romp with a bit of rock thrown in and it would have flopped for all times.

I find I'm quite excited for the Les Miz movie and the cast. I've seen Crowe's band in concert and they can rock. And I really liked Crowe's voice. I think he can pull it off quite well. Not too sure about Jackman. He seems kind of young for Valjean, although I do like his voice. (and I'm sure he can pull it off.)

I just died a little inside:

Mackintosh was asked if he would follow through on his London casting of Nick Jonas as Marius by replicating it here with our own home-grown pop superstar and his answer was, “I would love to hear Justin Bieber sing ‘Empty Chairs at Empty Tables.’ Please spread the word that he’d be more than welcome in the show.”

http://www.thestar.com/article/1065040--les-miz-returning-to-toronto-with-justin-bieber-as-a-possible-cast-member

*gag*
It's true. The world is being Bieberfied..

This is my nightmare coming true.

I think I need to throw up....

That is just a horrible thought

Please, please for the love of all that's good and holy, tell me he's joking.

~LCD

Seriously Uncle Cameron??? This has got to be a joke... I thought he had learned from the Jonas experience. Apparently not. Be afraid... be very afraid

operafantomet wrote:I just died a little inside:

Mackintosh was asked if he would follow through on his London casting of Nick Jonas as Marius by replicating it here with our own home-grown pop superstar and his answer was, “I would love to hear Justin Bieber sing ‘Empty Chairs at Empty Tables.’ Please spread the word that he’d be more than welcome in the show.”

http://www.thestar.com/article/1065040--les-miz-returning-to-toronto-with-justin-bieber-as-a-possible-cast-member

What. ... What?! To be honest, I'd rather have Zac Efron singing songs from Les Miserables. I think he has a stronger voice and and better acting skills.

OMG! He should be TOTALLY cast as the Phantom next. That would be, like, awesome.

For the sake of my sanity - I'm going to convince myself that Cam Mack was joking.

I'll also go out on a limb here and say that Jonas is a far superior choice to Bieber... and that's saying a lot.



~Madame~

I wasn't quite sure where to put this, but I stumbled upon some videos of Matt Lucas and Alfie Boe goofing around and singing at Matt's apartment.

Alfie singing the hell out of Nessun Dorma, with a hilarious intro by Matt:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZCGPR4U89o&feature=relmfu

The two of them singing The Impossible Dream:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_hQP3c-deE&feature=fvwrel

I thought this was already confirmed...but I guess it's confirmed-confirmed now.

Anne Hathaway will be Fantine in the Les Miz movie:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/risky-business/anne-hathaway-les-miserables-249858

Apparently Ramin Karimloo will be the new Valjean in London. Not entirely impressed by the casting if true...

Yikes, and I thought his Phantom was a bad piece of miscasting...he really doesn't have the maturity and gravitas for Valjean.

~LCD

People are throwing around the "JOJ was in his late 20's when he first played Valjean so Ramin could totally play it" argument at the moment. However, in my opinion, they are two completely different performers, JOJ could convincingly play older, I really don't think Ramin can.

Someone also brought up the argument that they don't think his voice would be up to it. That's very true actually, he is very hit and miss in terms of vocal performance and I'm not sure he'll be able to pull Valjean off.

This is where the rumour originates from:

clicky! and BWW tend to get things right.

It's not just Andrew Lloyd Webber who wants them "young and pretty" these days. Ramin Karimloo as Valjean and Peter Jöback as the Phantom? AAAAAAAAGH!!




(I know Jöback technically isn't young, but both appearance and voice is... Pretty much like Karimloo)

Imagine Joback as Valjean...

starryeyed wrote:Apparently Ramin Karimloo will be the new Valjean in London. Not entirely impressed by the casting if true...

That's... wow.

I mean, I know that current Spanish Valjean is only 30 years old and is (as I've been told) superb in it, but it's just hard to picture Karimloo on that role.

We'll just have to wait.