Les Miz bothers some people raised on Rogers and Hammerstein style musicals with distinct individual songs and dialouge between them.
Les Miz is more in the style of operetta like Gilbert and Sullivan. It's a more European tradition. There are melodies and motifs that repeat throughout, rather than stand alone numbers.
Even though "I dreamed a dream", "on my own", and "Empty chairs and empty tables" are regarded as singular moments, the melodies are used multiple times. For instance, the Bishop welcomes Valjean into his home with the same melody as "Empty chairs and empty tables".
This kind of thing put me off of it at first. But when I read more about how it was conceived, I warmed up to it. It's rather like "Jesus-Christ, Superstar" in that it started as a concept album by two French men, just like JCS was a concept album at first.
Anyway, I've watched the 10th and 25th Anniversary concerts a couple of times since I've seen the movie. I think the guy who sings Valjean in the 25th is better than Willkinson vocally.
Les Miz is more in the style of operetta like Gilbert and Sullivan. It's a more European tradition.
Especially given that it blatantly steals from Puccini.
After cutting, pasting and reformatting, I've gotta concur with Scola. I wish that review wasn't done Hulk style because it is one of the best pieces of film criticism I've read in a while. Seriously - well worth reading, however you can manage to do it.
I changed case to sentence case, ran it through Instapaper and then sent it to evernote. It isn't perfect but it has many paragraphs and is readable.
[link]
when ACT did Urinetown and Phantom
Wow, I'm not sure I can think of two more dissimilar musicals.
Wait till they bring out the mashup,
Phantom Urine.
That craven toilet maven....of the niiiiiiiiiiight
I think most people *on* Broadway at the time had respect for the mega-spectacles because they knew how much damn
work
the people in them were doing. Even if you hate everything about the music in
Cats,
it was impossible to say the people who created it onstage every night weren't incredibly talented and working their butts off.
when ACT did Urinetown and Phantom
Wow, I'm not sure I can think of two more dissimilar musicals.
Sure you can! Assassins and South Pacific! Secret Garden and Debbie Does Dallas!
I grew up immersed in traditional musical theatre, so any disdain I expressed for the art form was always a sort of rebellion.
I don't get why musical theater is considered lesser. I grew listening to all of my mom's albums -- stuff like Jesus Christ Superstar and Oliver! and Brigadoon and My Fair Lady and The King and I -- and I love it. I hate snobbery.
I can't decide between Zero Dark Thirty and Silver Linings Playbook to see today. Zero Dark Thirty is in the big fabulous theater, but I'm not sure I'm in the mood.
What to do??
