Standout moments from "Les Mis" recordings, 1993-'96
My Les Mis watch- and listen-through has reached the mid '90s. Once again, I'm citing the moments both from complete video and audio bootlegs and from official cast recordings that stand out the most for me. Again, thanks to @professorspork with her Wicked Punctum Project for inspiring me.
1993 South Korean proshot video
(unknown cast)
Valjean's death tableau from the novel recreated onstage.
Like the original Israeli and Hungarian productions, the original South Korean production of Les Mis was non-replica, and heavily cut too. But some of its inventive staging choices are worth noticing. This is one of the smaller ones, but it stands out the most to me. In the final scene, Marius is much more anguished than usual as he begs Valjean’s forgiveness and recounts how he saved him, fairly breaking down in remorse as he kneels by the dying man’s side. Meanwhile, Cosette is already kneeling at her father’s other side, and Valjean comforts them both. The result is a near-perfect recreation of the way Hugo describes Valjean’s last moments, with Marius and Cosette kneeling in tears on either side of him and holding his hands. A tableau that was one of the novel’s iconic images in its day, which inspired many 19th century illustrators to draw it, but which isn’t featured in most productions of the musical.
Honorable Mentions:
*In “Who Am I?” the courtroom appears behind Valjean from the beginning of the song’s main verses. As Valjean sings, we see a pantomime of Javert delivering his testimony, Champmathieu pleading in vain, and the judges listening impassively, in front of a red curtain that adds a hellish ambience.
*In the “Waltz of Treachery,” when the Thénardiers are pretending to fawn over little Cosette, Mme. Thénardier gives her Éponine’s doll. Cosette thinks the doll is really hers to keep and cradles it adoringly, but just before she leaves with Valjean, Mme. T. heartlessly snatches it back from her. This makes it all the sweeter when Valjean gives her a real gift (an anachronistic teddy bear instead of a doll, but whatever) a few moments later.
*In “Look Down,” Éponine works as a flower girl, like an even poorer and grubbier Eliza Doolittle. When Valjean and Cosette enter, she tries to sell them a flower, and in doing so, she glimpses Cosette’s face and recognizes her from their childhood.
*Javert wears a fake beard to the barricade, which Gavroche rips off during “Little People.” Really.
*During the wedding, Cosette is with Marius and the Thénardiers during their interaction, and Mme. Thénardier feigns excessive friendliness to her. Thus, she gets a shocking reminder of her childhood trauma, she hears the whole revelation of how Valjean saved Marius (although Marius still explains it to her in the next scene – presumably because she didn’t know that “Jean Valjean” was her father), and since Marius’s lines about Éponine are uncut, she’s visibly shaken to hear of Éponine’s death too.
Of the six Japanese cast recordings of Les Mis, this one seems to be the only one easy to obtain in the US, and it features Kaho Shimada reprising her role as Éponine from the original 1987 Tokyo cast and from the Complete Symphonic Recording. As a seasoned performer in the role, and this time singing in her native Japanese, she brings a whole new level of passion and vividness to her performance on this recording, especially in “Attack on Rue Plumet.” Her (Japanese equivalent of) “I’m gonna scream, I’m gonna warn them here!” sounds frantic and feral, as does her half-spoken “Well, I told you I’d do it! I told you I’d do it!” Her raw fear, anger, and desperation transcend language, and though she’s never been an Éponine who can do a classic high-pitched scream, the fierce animalistic screech she utters instead is fully effective. Adding to the scene’s rawness is the fact that during Claquesous’ “What a palaver…” we hear Thénardier slapping her twice!
Honorable Mention:
*The Javert of Kunio Murai (a.k.a. the Japanese voice of Harrison Ford) softly yet madly laughing after “I am reaching, but I fall” in “Javert’s Suicide.”
10th Anniversary Concert
Colm Wilkinson (Jean Valjean), Phillip Quast (Javert), Ruthie Henshall (Fantine), Alun Armstrong (Thénardier), Jenny Galloway (Mme. Thénardier), Lea Salonga (Éponine), Michael Ball (Marius), Michael Maguire (Enjolras), Judy Kuhn (Cosette)
The moment of Éponine’s death.
Most Les Mis fans seem to agree that Lea Salonga and Michael Ball give us an especially poignant rendition of “A Little Fall of Rain” in this concert. And of that rendition, it’s the very end that stands out for me. The way Lea draws out her last note on “…flowers…” so that her voice sweetly blends with Michael’s, then gives him one last tender glance before her eyes close and her head falls lifeless against his chest. Michael’s soft, short “…grow,” which sounds as if Marius is so overwhelmed with emotion that he can barely utter the word. And the way he tenderly caresses her hair and kisses the top of her head, then mournfully cradles her body. Even though this is a concert with the performers standing in front of mics, this moment is just as tender and poignant as it is in any fully staged performance.
Honorable Mentions:
*Colm Wilkinson’s fearsome “I will see it DONE!!!” at the end of “Fantine’s Arrest.”
*Ruthie Henshall’s shimmering, ethereal tone as she trails away her final note on “…and I’ll see her when I wake!” We seem to hear Fantine’s spirit rising to heaven on that note.
*Hannah Chick getting startled by an accidental balloon pop during "Castle on a Cloud," but continuing the song without missing a beat.
*Alun Armstrong and Jenny Galloway’s pantomime bickering as the Thénardiers at the end of “Master of the House.”
*Michael Maguire’s “Lamarque is dead…” in which at first, he seems to reel in grief, but then suddenly realizes that this can be the catalyst for their revolution, and then rallies his friends with mounting excitement that finally becomes ecstatic fervor.
*Lea Salonga’s fierce and angry “Without me, his world will go on turning” in “On My Own.” The melancholy waif Éponine of the ‘80s is gone: this girl is a fiery urchin and she’s mad at Marius for not returning her love.
*Michael Maguire placing his hand on Anthony Crivello’s shoulder after the latter’s solo in “Drink with Me.” It’s a small gesture, but it shows that by this time in the musical’s history, everyone seems to agree that Enjolras and Grantaire should have some meaningful interaction in this moment.
*Philip Quast loosening one lock of his hair to convey the unhinging of his mind during “Javert’s Suicide.”
Original Duisburg Cast Recording
Jerzy Jeszke (Jean Valjean), Hartwig Rudolz (Javert), Cornelia Drese (Fantine), Tom Zahner (Thénardier), Anne Welte (Mme. Thénardier), Sanni Luis (Éponine), Felix Martin (Marius), Martin Berger (Enjolras), Deborah Dutcher (Cosette)
The Foreman’s “Right, my girl. On your way!” (or rather “Tja, mein Schatz. Raus mit dir!”)
Again, it’s not easy to choose a standout moment from a highlights recording. But I finally chose one, although it doesn’t involve any of the leads. It’s the way that Steffen Friedrich as the Foreman delivers the German equivalent of “Right, my girl. On your way!” (Which literally translates as “Well, my darling. Out with you!”) In my experience, very few actors deliver “On your way!” as a full-blown ferocious shout: yes, Michael McCarthy and Jeff Nicholson in the anniversary concerts both roar it, but that seems to be precisely because those performances are grand-scale concerts. Most actors in my experience either just snap it or else speak it in a chillingly quiet voice. This German actor is the first Foreman I’ve heard outside of a concert who truly shouts the line, in a vicious snarling tone. Poor Fantine.
1996 Duisburg proshot video
Jerzy Jeszke (Jean Valjean), Hartwig Rudolz (Javert), Cornelia Drese (Fantine), Tom Zahner (Thénardier), Anne Welte (Mme. Thénardier), Sanni Luis (Éponine), Felix Martin (Marius), Martin Berger (Enjolras), Deborah Dutcher (Cosette)
Felix Martin’s reserved grief for Éponine.
I’ve chosen the same moment here that I did for the 10th Anniversary Concert, but here it’s played very differently. Felix Martin is a reserved and gentlemanly Marius, nowhere near as amiable and effusive as Michael Ball, and Sanni Luis’s ruggedly vulnerable Éponine clearly belongs to a different world than he does. He treats her with amusement and sympathy, but not as a close friend. But as she brings him to Cosette, protects them from the gang, and ultimately dies for him at the barricade, he sees her in a new light and learns her true value. His reaction to her death suits this arc and his personality in general. At first glance it might seem cold: no tears, no kiss, no cradling, just a long, motionless, sadly disbelieving stare at her body. But as he stays in that stance even after she’s carried away, it becomes clear that he’s shaken to the core by her passing. Especially when he finally picks up her hat and gently presses it to his heart.
Honorable Mentions:
*At the end of "Master of the House," instead of the standard closing comic business (i.e. Thénardier drinks his own bad homemade wine, runs to the kitchen, and throws up), Mme. Thénardier withdraws into the kitchen gulping the wine, and her husband follows her, angry that she just humiliated him in front of everyone. He snatches the jug from her, and they get into a vicious pantomime argument, seeming about to come to blows as the turntable sweeps them out of sight.
*Felix’s Marius putting his hand on Enjolras’s shoulder as the latter sings “…before the barricades arise?” and smiling idealistically at Enjolras’s vision. This one quick moment establishes Marius’s devotion to Enjolras as a friend and to their cause, setting the stage for his inner conflict when romance threatens to interfere.
*Valjean hugging Cosette on “Cosette, my child, what will become of you?” and Cosette resting her head on his chest, as if she really did just have a bad fright and wants comfort. A sweet, tender father/daughter moment in a scene that’s not always played for tenderness… yet with a double edge, because Cosette is lying to Valjean to hide Marius’s presence.
*Enjolras rallying his friends during “One Day More!” Martin Berger doesn’t just stand with his rifle aloft throughout his solo lines: he does it briefly at first, but then he turns and interacts with the other Amis, touching their shoulders, addressing them individually, and actively being a leader and friend to them, not just a figurehead of revolution.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/?
Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Characters: Original Statement Giver(s) (The Magnus Archives), Original Characters, Elias Bouchard | Jonah Magnus, The Desolation (The Magnus Archives), The Web (The Magnus Archives), The Buried (The Magnus Archives), The Corruption (The Magnus Archives), The Flesh (The Magnus Archives), The Spiral (The Magnus Archives), The Dark (The Magnus Archives), The End (The Magnus Archives), The Slaughter (The Magnus Archives), The Beholding (The Magnus Archives), The Lonely (The Magnus Archives), The Stranger (The Magnus Archives), The Vast (The Magnus Archives), The Extinction (The Magnus Archives)
Summary:
In the American branch of the Magnus Institute, named The Usher Foundation, archival assistant Amita Dasgupta has decided to take the archives into her own hands. Original characters, original statements. Written in script-style. Audio recordings to match each statement/episode!
SO UH...I did it! I did a thing! Please check out the first episode of my spinoff project! Check out the A/N at the beginning of the work - there’s a link to the audio file I recorded to go with this statement.
Thank you so much in advance and I hope you like it!
This is a catch-up audio file for day 21: forget. Similar in style to Samsung's Unspoil Me website, this file will help you forget all of my Hypnovember works for this year. Why? So you can re-experience them again for the first time!
JD produced edited audio recordings to the court, likely similar to the ones Adam Waldman released to the public for the smear campaign.
More about the audio in the case: here.
Against landscapes that the artist and his father traversed, audio of the father in the Ho-Chunk language is transcribed using the International Phonetic Alphabet, which tapers off, narrowing the distance between recorder and recordings, new and traditional, memory and song.
Director Sky Hopinka will make an exciting return to Sundance for the 2020 Festival with malni - towards the ocean, towards the shore; a New Frontier film exploring the origin of the death myth of the Chinookan people.
Here’s a short clip from Carousel of Life, Chapter Twenty-Four: Bridal Style. I recorded this on my phone in one take, informally, so not the final audio quality or voice acting. :P
I posted this chapter on AO3 to get feedback before I make the recording for YouTube. If anyone wants to help out by giving it a read, that would be very awesome of you... otherwise, feel free to just read the text version, or (if you’d rather not be spoiled) the audio version will be out probably over this weekend or early next week.
Transcript below the cut.
“I’m not talking about everyone and Hawkmoth’s mother, I’m talking about just him!”
“The best kept secrets are those you never share,” Tikki admonished gently.
Marinette buried her head under the comforter and sobbed, sniffling with every inhalation.
Tikki nudged her way under the comforter and tickled Marinette’s face with a tissue. She accepted it and blew her nose.
“I’m sorry, Marinette. I know it isn’t easy, but Master Fu chose you because you’re strong and responsible enough to do the right thing.”
The words were bitter, like chasing mint with orange juice.
“What’s the worst that can happen?” Marinette mumbled into the comforter.
“The end of the world?”
“That’s ridiculous, Tikki! You don’t have to exaggerate!!”
“I’m not exaggerating, Marinette! The role of miraculous holders is to keep this world in equilibrium—a minor imbalance can have devastating effects! There’s a reason we kwamis are hard-wired not to be able to speak the names of our holders even to other kwamis.”
“But you and Chat Noir’s kwami have seen us!” Marinette countered. “Alya and Nino know about each other, and nothing horrific has happened yet!”
“You know there’s a difference, Marinette,” Tikki cautioned. “Alya and Nino don’t keep their miraculouses on at all times the way you and Chat Noir do. Hawkmoth isn’t after their miraculouses.”
Tikki was right, and Marinette wasn’t happy about it at all. Failing to come up with an argument, she succumbed to a fresh wave of tears, curling tighter under the blankets. Tikki pressed against Marinette’s cheek to comfort her.
“This isn’t fair… he loves me.” She sniffed. “He’s suffering for absolutely no reason. Why can’t I just tell him?”
“All right, Marinette. Go ahead and tell him,” Tikki challenged, losing patience. “Then go and say goodbye to Chat Noir, since you’ll have to give up being Ladybug.”
Annoyance flickered in Marinette’s chest, and she sat up. “Don’t sass me, Tikki. It’s not like I’m trying to be rebellious... I just need a solution!”
“There are some things in life that you can’t solve by charging forward and doing something, Marinette. Sometimes you just have to be patient. You can’t tell him you’re Ladybug, so until he’s ready to be with only Marinette, you’ll have to wait.”
“But he already knows who I am! He can sense it! Why should he have to suffer for being right?”
“He doesn’t know, he suspects,” Tikki corrected.
“Oh! And speaking of Chat Noir—”
Tikki let out a high pitched sound of exasperation and flitted away from Marinette, who leaned over the loft rail after her.
“Why can’t you just tell me? Is he Chat Noir or not? I know you know who he is—Ha!” Marinette interjected with an ironic laugh—“And I also know you’re not going to tell me, but you know what? I think he is Chat Noir. All the puns, and calling me Princess and everything, I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. What’s the use of secrecy if we already know? Isn’t it more dangerous that we’re agonizing over identities instead of focusing on how to defeat Hawkmoth?”
“Marinette…” Tikki warned, crossing her arms and shaking her head at her chosen’s borderline hysteria. “First of all… calm down.”
Marinette pressed her lips together, seething, her cheeks still wet with tears. “I am calm.”
