Les Misérables, affectionally known as Les Mis, is the stage adaptation of Victor Hugo's 1862 novel of the same name. The sung-through musical was originally written in French by Claude-Michel Schönberg, Alain Boubil and Jean-Marc Natel and staged in 1980.
Adapted from Victor Hugo's sweeping novel, Les Misérables tells the story of struggle, perseverance, and love through the French revolution. The musical features music by Claude-Michel Schönberg, lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer, and book by Schönberg and Alain Boubil.
Twenty years in the conception and execution, Les Misérables was first published in France and Belgium in 1862, a year which found Victor Hugo in exile from his beloved France.
Although Andrew Lloyd Webber is an extremely prolific composer, he did not compose the stage version of Les Misérables (1980). The composer for that play was French musician Claude-Michel Schönberg.
Major conflict Valjean struggles to transform himself from a thief into an honest man; over the years he struggles to stay a step ahead of the zealous police officer Javert and tries to raise his adopted daughter, Cosette.
Colm Wilkinson is known for originating the role of Jean Valjean in Les Misérables in the 1985 London production and the 1987 Broadway bow. He received the 1987 Theatre World and Outer Critics Circle awards for his performance and was nominated for a Drama Desk and a Tony.
While some the events in Les Miserables actually happened, the characters in the novel are fictional. The final conflict at the barricades in Les Miserables is based on the Paris Uprising of 1832, a short-lived rebellion that ended after only two days.
Updated September 30, 2021. Les Misérables has several shades of meaning in French. Translators say that Victor Hugo's novel, published in 1862, could just as well be titled The Miserable Ones, The Outcasts, The Wretched Poor, The Victims or The Dispossessed.
In fact, it's the plot that helps make it stand out from other shows. It's a big, epic, anti-capitalist piece of theatre, tackling difficult themes from abuse to poverty, redemption to revolution. But ultimately, Les Mis, for all its darkness and all its scenes and songs about human suffering, is a musical about hope.
In the English-speaking world, the novel is usually referred to by its original French title, which can be translated from the French as The Miserables, The Wretched, The Miserable Ones, The Poor Ones, The Wretched Poor, or The Victims.
Moral values in the novel “Les Miserables” are love and sincerity, forgiveness, Sacrifice, Justice/Injustice. Fantine earned less and less money from her sewing, and the Thenardiers demanded more and more money to look after Cosette.
(Why waste a perfectly good shell?). Even orange peels went down the hatch. A fellow author remembered, “At the end of the meal he dipped orange quarters into his wine and ate them with marked satisfaction. Everything about Victor Hugo was extraordinary, even his digestion.”
The June rebellion of 1832 was an uprising in Paris against the rule of King Louis-Philippe, fuelled by economic hardship and a cholera epidemic. It was quashed, and is remembered mainly for its inclusion in Victor Hugo's 1862 novel, Les Misérables.
Did the actors do their own singing in Les Misérables?
The cast of Les Misérables have continually raved about singing live on set: Eddie Redmayne, who also has a key part in “Red and Black” as Marius, pointed out that it gave them the freedom to make their acting choices on set, not three months earlier in the recording studio; Tveit said “there's such an immediacy to the ...
Beginning in 1815 and culminating in the 1832 June Rebellion in Paris, the novel follows the lives and interactions of several characters, particularly the struggles of ex-convict Jean Valjean and his experience of redemption.
Les Miserables was banned by the Catholic Church. The novel is believed to have been added to their collection of books that Catholics were forbade to read in 1864. There is no single template of reasons why the novel was banned except for the feature of prostitution (Fantine) in the novel.
Paris: City of light, city of love, and city of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables! Immortalized in its many incarnations, from the page to the stage to screens both big and small, Hugo's Paris of 1832 largely exists no more.
Part of the problem with a Les Miz film or musical play in France is that EVERYONE knows Victor Hugo's novel. It is taught in every public, private and parochial school in France. Most french people consider the musical and the various film productions to be bastardizations of the beloved great French novel.
Valjean's character is loosely based on the life of Eugène François Vidocq, an ex-convict who became a successful businessman widely noted for his social engagement and philanthropy. Vidocq helped Hugo with his research for Claude Gueux and Le Dernier jour d'un condamné (The Last Day of a Condemned Man).
The main characters were cast later that year. Principal photography began in March 2012 and ended in June. Filming took place on locations in Greenwich, London, Chatham, Winchester, Bath, and Portsmouth, England; in Gourdon, France; and on soundstages in Pinewood Studios.
Colm Wilkinson. Arguably the most iconic and popular portrayal of Valjean out there, Wilkinson originated the role on the West End, reprised it for the original Broadway cast, and would later reprise it a few other times, most notably in the 1995 10th Anniversary “Dream Cast in Concert” production.
Among the many characters that have graced its stage, Eponine is one of the most memorable. But, who sang the best Eponine? Undoubtedly, Frances Ruffelle stands out as the best performer to have portrayed the character.
