About that musical....

As I expand the adaptation commentary on this site, I’m afraid it won’t, for the moment, include extensive commentary on the stage musical. Sorry. Let me explain. 

Of all the adaptations of Les Misérables – and there are dozens, if not hundreds – the musical is the most well-known, today, worldwide. It is a phenomenon that bridges the English- and French-speaking worlds more than one might think: the musical theater tradition that it comes from has its roots in the English-speaking world, even as this musical is of French origin – not only because it’s based on a French novel, but because French lyricist and librettist Alain Boublil, along with French composer Claude-Michel Schönberg, wrote the first version of the show. It was originally a concept album, in French, using a lot of language taken directly from the novel, that first appeared in 1980 and was produced on stage at Paris’s Palais des Sports later the same year. Boublil and Schönberg were fans of English and American musical theater, and had written their first musical La Révolution française, in 1973, inspired by Jesus Christ Superstar. For Les Misérables, their inspiration was Oliver! and that title character’s resemblance to Hugo’s Gavroche. But Paris doesn’t have the highly-developed musical theater “scene” that London has in the West End or that New York has on Broadway, so it would take British producer Cameron Mackintosh, with lyricist Herbert Kretzmer and the English-language version that they would produce for the West End, to launch the phenomenon that would become “Les Miz.” 

There isn’t a lot of need to rehearse the success of that phenomenon here; it is vast. (I touch on it a bit on this page, but there are many sources out here on the interwebz that will detail the relevant theater history.) I’ll only continue the portion that finishes the story of the Anglo-French relationship embedded in the show: in 1991, the massive hit English-language version (likely more or less what you saw you saw if you saw it before 2009 or so) was re-translated back into French by Boublil, following Kretzmer’s version but drawing simultaneously on the original 1980 lyrics. It was staged in French in both Montreal and Paris that year, but has never been popular in France. Major productions around the world in 20-ish other languages have taken place at a consistent pace since then, including a new production in Paris as I write this in late 2024 – one undertaken in the hope that it will, finally, see some success in its home country.

So the stage musical is, in many ways, the adaptation of Les Misérables on the global stage (as it were), even as it maintains a strong connection to its French roots, and that ought to make it the one I prioritize commenting on. But detailed commentary of the sort that interests me here – namely, how and how successfully Hugo’s vision for the story comes through in the adaptation – isn’t all that practical on a stage show. Part of the beauty of live theater is that it is ephemeral, and different every time. Paradoxically, while “Les Miz” has been seen by over 130 million people worldwide (according to the show’s official website in 2024) only a few hundred, maybe a couple thousand, see any given performance. Plus, over time, changes in cast, staging, musical arrangement, and the like transform it in ways that are even greater than the variations that occur from one performance to the next, never mind how it might differ outside of a professional, Broadway-style venue. All of that is to say, I could undertake to comment on a particular incarnation of the show, and many of the details of my comments might hold up for a lot of people who had seen slightly different performances or productions, but quite a lot of them wouldn’t. Besides which, I don’t know about others who do this kind of work, but I need several (like, several) re-watchings to put comments together, and that is also prohibitive for live theater. (But hey, if someone would like to fund my attendance at a dozen or so performances of “Les Miz,” along with travel and expenses in London – or, heck, Paris if you act soon – you can contact me through this site!) I could comment on a theoretical, non-specific version of the stage show, or on the libretto, but that brings us back to commentary on what’s essentially a text, not live theater. 

So for the time being, I’m not going to engage in in-depth, Reading Companion-style commentary on the stage show as an adaptation of the novel. If there is ever a recorded version of the stage show like the one of Hamilton that was released in 2020, I will be as excited about it as you are, and I’ll do commentary then. But for the moment, I will offer commentary on the 2012 Tom Hooper film version of the musical, in all its controversial glory. In audio format, you'll find 3 special episodes that will sync with the film itself here, and in readable form, you'll find that commentary here.