Comédies Musicales

Londres, Broadway, Paris

[comediesmusicales]

Les Misérables - 2024/25 French Production - Le Grand Jour (One Day More) - Live aux 36ème Molières (April 28th 2025)

[comediesmusicales]

Bad Valentine's Day? So is theirs.

[yesornopolls]

have you ever seen the same play/musical live more than once?

Have you ever seen the same play/musical live more than once?

Yes

No

Voting ended onJan 6, 2025

[comediesmusicales]

Different versions but yes.

Starmania (2)

Into the Woods (2)

Les Misérables (3)

My Fair Lady (2)

[comediesmusicales]

I finally saw Les Misérables in Paris. It was the very last performance. Half the cast was crying, the whole crew came on stage, Schonberg and Boublil too. I'll write a review this weekend, it was definitely an interesting production.

[alicedrawslesmis]

tis the season

[alicedrawslesmis]

dude this song has infinite replay potential

[scpernovas]

“RENT is a Christmas movie,” I say into the microphone.

the crowd boos. i begin to walk off in shame, when a voice speaks and commands silence from the room.

“she’s right.” I look around for the owner of the voice. there, in the 2nd row, stands Anthony Rapp himself, in a scarf and filming. it is December 24, 9pm Eastern Standard Time.

[comediesmusicales]

What is happening there?

What's that guy doing in the background?

[juliesque04-deactivated20250806]

Every six months i find out that Les Misérables ISN'T about, like, some orphans in the Victorian Era being forced into labour during the Industrial Revolution, and I genuinely have no idea why I've gone around my whole life just wholeheartedly believing that's what that book is about

[edowayeye]

HUH WTF IS IT ABOUT THEN??

[pilferingapples]

...I so much want to know how you both came to this conclusion, and I'm saying that as someone who themselves when through a period of being VERY confused about what this story was XD

As Hugo said:

So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, decrees of damnation pronounced by society, artificially creating hells amid the civilization of earth, and adding the element of human fate to divine destiny; so long as the three great problems of the century⁠—the degradation of man through pauperism, the corruption of woman through hunger, the crippling of children through lack of light⁠—are unsolved; so long as social asphyxia is possible in any part of the world;⁠—in other words, and with a still wider significance, so long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Misérables cannot fail to be of use.

It's about prejudice, social hierarchies, the human spirit, and a whole bunch of people trying to survive post-Napoleonic France and maybe improve society a little along the way!

Also sewers. It's about sewers.

[comediesmusicales]

People probably see images of Gavroche in Les Misérables and make some sort of connection with Dickens even though it's a not the same country.

[dis-astre]

OK A BREAKDOWN OF LES MISERABLES IN FRANCE

- they changed a lot of the lyrics (including my fav/funniest lyrics unfortunately) which was pretty interesting ; honestly i think it's a great thing bc it was last re-written in 1991 and they made the songs more textual, more like real talking and i think way more accessible for a lot of people (bc in france we have this habit of writing pretty words, with a lot of images and lyrical phrases but it's not always helping to understand the plot yknow)

- the new lyrics for do you hear the people sing/à la volonté du peuple are SO GOOD ! originally it says :

à la volonté du peuple/et à la santé du progrès/rempli ton cœur d'un vin rebelle/et à demain ami fidèle

(to the will of the people/and cheers to progress/fill your heart with a rebel wine/and see you tomorrow, faithful friend)

and now it's:

à la volonté du peuple/qui crie les mots de sa colère/le chant de ceux qui ne veulent plus/être les damnés de la terre

à la volonté du peuple/dont on étouffe jamais la voix/et dont le chant renaît toujours/et dont le chant renait déjà

(to the will of the people/screaming the words of its anger/the song of those who don't want to be/the damned on earth anymore

to the will of the people/which you can never choke the voice/and whose song always revive/and whose song's revive already)

and idk i think it's pretty freaking cool; but i'll do a big breakdown of the new lyrics of do you hear the people sing bc it's the song they changed the most and i think it's way better for our times and more hopeful and giving the will to fight

- the stage: honestly real cool and clever! it's a smaller stage, way smaller than the west end one if my memories are not mistaken, and we obvisouly don't have the rotating stage; but they played a lot with moving structures and transparent curtains to make special effect like buildings, rain, etc... and it's way real cool !

- idk who the sound guy was but props to him cause the sound was SO GOOD like it sounded so clean and like listening to an album, truly perfect on this aspect

- the actors were GREAT, you could see they rlly took the roles and made them their own (i think enjolras' actor loves his role bc ive seen some of his tiktok and he looks like he loves it a lot so that's cool af)

- also i bough this

which is a conversation with boublil and schonberg retracing the story of the musical so yay

Anyway i'll do another big post to tell y'all act by act what was happening !

[hadleysmis-deactivated20260401]

Hadley's notes on the Châtelet production

The port

“I’ll drop an anchor on the welcoming sea.”

Hair cutting happens on stage, but two women stand in the way so we can’t see the details obviously.

“They want to look before buying.” Woman (sex worker) says. She doesn’t look at her, and instead looks at the ground. She says it almost tight-lipped, like a murmur of suggestion and guide. I took this as the other woman being sad for her situation and guiding her, but in retrospect that might’ve not been the vibe, but that’s how I read it in the scene.

Fantine gets changed, and one leg is proper exposed, naked from the parting of her dress. Once she stumbles back on stage after the change, she tries to hide her leg.

You see the rape scene. It happens in short, silence, and you get to hear the man’s grunt. (I’ll call it rape because she didn’t want it to happen, even if she consented.) It’s loud silence. The man’s trousers are down. He pins her against one of the staging (which acts as a wall). She’s literally pinned, forced to be acting as a “corpse” as she puts it, taking it in.

“Inspector Javert” is translated to “Detective Javert” in the subtitles.

Javert says “The law punishes the guilty, even if they think they’re innocent.”

Fantine attacks Jean Valjean. When she’s the loudest, she puts her forearms to his chest, and beats his chest with her fists if that makes sense.

[hadleysmis-deactivated20260401]

Hadley's notes on the Châtelet production

The factory

‘Fantine has to give it [to the boss], whether or not she wants to, she has to.’ Along those lines were said in Fantine’s introduction.

In the factory, they are heating glass in the background.

Jealous woman tries to strangle Fantine.

When Fantine is fired, the factory boss harshly undress her outer (factory) clothes.

“I dreamt of a different life [….], I was twenty what’s wrong with it?”

“Men are wolves.” Fantine is more harsh on Félix and says that he sniffed her trail, sated their appetite. He was the first scoundrel to her.

Félix is clearly to blame from her narrative. She’s not sympathetic towards him, etc. She criticises him more harshly than the British production.

“He begs me and regrets.” (I honestly don’t remember the context of this. I was distracted by the port scene so I didn’t finish writing down what I wanted to. But this is a quote.)

[hadleysmis-deactivated20260401]

Hadley's notes on Châtelet Les Mis

Jean Valjean, anew

Screen in front, projection. Whipping involved. Smell. Chain choking (one of the guards strangles a prisoner. They throw his clothes to the floor, and declothes him forcefully.)

Jean Valjean’s temporary job is sorting and stacking hay. He goes beyond his own job in order to earn as much as possible.

When Jean Valjean gets rejected from an auberge, he stares at a child being scared and being comforted by other adults. He is more concerned about how he's being perceived by the child as a scary monster/villain more than anything else that was happening in the scene.

When the Bishop welcomes JvJ, he stretches out his arm to almost shove the yellow passport in the air in front of him, but Myriel ignores this.

Both Baptistine and Magloire is in this production.

When the Bishop gives the candlesticks away, Baptistine is immediately touched, and looks at him like “awh that’s my brother”. Meanwhile, Magloire is a bit more protest-y about it, but holds her words in.

When Jean Valjean sings Who Am I, there is a projection of steam, and these stem come into shape of Myriel as JvJ speaks about him.

“Wall of ice melts” ; “My heart beats under the shell”

“I’ll spare the world the wrath of Jean Valjean” (During JvJ’s Soliloquy)

[operas-phantom]

We’re.. multiplying..

[andicillustrates]

Just in time for Halloween 👻 Trying to get used to pen and ink again and used one of my fave films Phantom of The Paradise as inspiration.

[comediesmusicales]

Understudies of the 2024-25 Paris revival production of Les Misérables

🔸️ Jean Valjean : Henri Pauliat (@henri_pauliat )

🔹️ Javert : Grégory Benchenafi (@gregorybenchenafi )

🔸️ Fantine : Myriana Hatchi (@myrianahatchi )

🔹️ Monsieur Thénardier : Ronan Debois (@ronandebois )

🔸️ Madame Thénardier : Ambre Brisset (@ambrebrst )

🔹️ Marius : Harold Simon (@haroldsimon_ )

🔸️Cosette : Mathilde de Carné (@mathildedecarne )

🔹️ Éponine : Juliette Behar (@behar.juliette)

🔸️Enjolras : Mickael Alkemia (@mickael.alkemia )

🔹️ L’évêque de Digne : Louis Buisset (@louis_buisset )

[euphraisette]

Just realized the “castle on a cloud” melody is repeated after the attack on rue plumet….. “three men i saw beyond the wall/three men in shadow moving fast”

ITS COSETTES MAKING SHIT UP MELODY

[sofka]

Lamarck is like, "Enjolras, I’m dying. Please stop beatboxing”