Les Misérables 1980
I have already talked about Les Misérables
but I wanted to expand on the subject a little more ...
This strange idea of adapting Victor Hugo's novel into a musical came from Alain Boublil after he attended a performance of the musical Oliver! during one of his trips to London
( He states that he perceived a striking resemblance in his mind between Oliver Twist and Gavroche )
Carried away by what he considers (rightly) as a flash of genius, he will work in collaboration with Claude-Michel Schönberg and Jean-Marc Natel to compose the music and lyrics for they future album :
Fortunately the album will experience its small success with the public, this victory will make the creators grow wings who will launch head first into the torrent of stage creation !
This heavy task will be entrusted to Robert Hossein ( a French director, actor, screenwriter, dialogue writer , In short a multitasker ) who will use his fame to the best of his ability to promote the show , which will earn him criticism and mockery from all of Paris, who do not believe in this project, which they consider fanciful !
The very first production of Les Misérables was created and then performed in Paris at the Palais des Sports in September 1980
Scheduled for a minimum of eight weeks, it will be played for sixteen weeks, with the Palais des sports no longer available beyond that
With 107 performances, it attracted around 500,000 spectators
* I don't know how it works in the UK and the United States at the same time but in France it will be necessary to reach the end of the 90s for the musicals to truly circulate throughout the country and abroad
DISTRIBUTION :
Maurice Barrier : Jean Valjean
Jean Vallée : Javert
Rose Laurens : Fantine
Yvan Dautin : Mr Thénardier
Marie-France Roussel : Mrs Thénardier
Maryse Cédolin / Sylvie Camacho / Priscilla Patron : little Cosette
( alternately the little girls also played little Eponine and Azelma )
Fabienne Guyon : Cosette
Marianne Mille : Éponine
Cyrille Dupont / Fabrice Ploquin / Florence Davis : Gavroche
Gilles Buhlmann : Marius
Christian Ratellin : Enjolras
René-Louis Baron : Combeferre
Dominique Tirmont : Mr Gillenormand
Anne Forrez : Mrs Gillenormand
Claude Reva : Storyteller
There remain too few archives of the original show
Unfortunately at the time filming in theaters and performance halls was not a common reflex !!
However, I did my best to find as much as possible :
Potential unreleased Javert song, not kept for the album / show ⤵️
The Full Live Audio Recording of the Show :
ANECDOTES :
If I'm not mistaken, this is the only version that uses the character of Azelma ... The sister of Eponine and Gavroche !!
* I don't know if Azelma returns as an adult in the second act ...
...
Cyrille Dupont, one of the three children who played Gavroche, was best known for the French theme song of Nobody's Boy : Remi
...
Florence Davis one of three actors playing Gavroche was ... a girl !!
Strange artistic choice ? Or last-rescue liner ??
...
Robert Hossein was so deeply affected by this production that, two years later, he directed his own film adaptation of the original novel :
Starring the very young Emmanuel Curtil as Gavroche, this little boy is today an ICONIC voice actor in France : Jim Carrey, Mike Myers, Simba and many many others characters !!
My Masterlist
