Les Misérables 1991
After the semi-failure of the very first live show in 1980
Les Mis should have logically fallen into oblivion …
Without the miraculous intervention of Cameron Mackintosh !!
( The man responsible for, among other things, Cats and The Phantom of the Opera ... in short, a big name who knows what to bet on )
While he had just inaugurated Cats on Broadway, the concept album of the show was sent to him by the director Peter Farago, having seen Robert Hossein's stage adaptation in Paris, he wanted to create an English version !
Mackintosh, initially reluctant eventually accepted
It took two years of collaborative work for the first adaptation of a French musical to finally premiere in London at the Barbican Centre in October 1985 before moving to West End :
This immense success, which would be consolidated worldwide, led to the production of a second official French version
( which can even be considered a complete remake )
Because it would be stupid to change a winning team
Cameron Mackintosh will take the reins of the project ( with behind him the shadow of Alain Boublil who will have to RETRANSLATE the english texts which are translations of his own texts )
The show will be performed at first in Montreal at the Théâtre Saint-Denis then in Paris at the Théâtre Mogador
1991 full album
FRENCH DISTRIBUTION :
Robert Marien : Jean Valjean
Patrick Rocca : Javert
Louise Pitre : Fantine
Laurent Gendron : Mr Thénardier
Marie-France Roussel : Mrs Thénardier
Lynda Zaoui / Anne-Laure Grondin / Nora Kati / Aurélie Lebarbé / Marjorie Theillaumas / Karine Debec / Audrey Boitel : alternately little Cosette and little Eponine
Marie Zamora : Cosette
Stéphanie Martin : Éponine
Ludwig Briand / Cyrille Vannier / Alexis Tomassian : Gavroche
Jérôme Pradon : Marius
Julien Combey : Enjolras
Renaud Marx : Grantaire
Vincent Vittoz : Combeferre
Pierre-Yves Duchesne : Courfeyrac
Juan Pablo Armitano : Feuilly
FRENCH CANADIAN DISTRIBUTION :
Robert Marien : Jean Valjean
Peter Zinko : Javert
Louise Pitre : Fantine
Andre Therrien : Mr Thénardier
Mireille Thibeault : Mrs Thénardier
Clotilde Aras / Adrienne Nye / Lily Russell / Aurelie Lebarbe / Marjorie Theillaumas / Anne-Laure Grondin : alternately little Cosette and little Eponine
Laur Fugère : Cosette
Stéphanie Martin : Éponine
Andrew Bauer-Gâdor / Gabriel Kakon : Gavroche
Frayne McCarthy : Marius
Francois Godin : Enjolras
Daniel Jean : Grantaire
Sébastien Dhavernas : Courfeyrac
Alexandre Beaulieu : Joly
Unlike the original show which had a lot of archive photos but few videos , here I was able to find more interesting materials :
The Full Live Audio Recording of the Show :
Unfortunately ... the show was a resounding failure
Les Mis were snubbed for two reasons :
1 - France and musicals is an incredibly recent encounter !!
The French public was neither accustomed and not interested in this type of spectacle, which was deemed pretentious and unnecessarily expensive, it would take the arrival of Notre-Dame de Paris , Ironically another musical based on a novel by Victor Hugo , In 1999, for this kind of show to be adopted and appreciated by the public ( I will probably talk about it one day, it is this show which launched the craze and then the golden age of French musicals )
2 - Fans of the first album and show felt betrayed
It's not easy to accept as a long-time fan that a work is cut or modified ... So when an "" foreigner "" allows himself to modify the songs and the scenography, declaring this version to be superior to the original ?!
The pill was definitely difficult to swallow
( Not to mention the Franco-English friend-enemy relationship which goes back a long way )
Die-hard fans took this as an affront and boycotted the show !!
Apparently, Cameron Mackintosh was so upset and disappointed by the situation that he called France a "musical graveyard " which only further angered the public, who shunned the show and wouldn't revive it until 2024
ANECDOTES :
Ludwig Briand, one of the young actors who played Gavroche, became a famous child star by taking on the role of Mimi Siku in a French comedy film that remains a cult classic to this day :
MASTERLIST
