BlissAndConversation.com

          To  hear Boublil and Schonberg’s award-winning adaptation of Victor Hugo’s 19^th-century novel in concert at The Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic providing the music, Mitch Hanlon Singers providing the chorus and an all-star cast directed by Richard-Jay Alexander, longtime Executive Producer of Cameron Mackintosh’s Amercan company, is a breathtakingly novel experience.

          Jay-Alexander directs a stage and screen production simultaneously, as the immense bowl which dwarfs the tiny figures on stage is flanked by movie screens which bring them to us in close-up.  His sense of drama and familiarity with the form and the show focuses an intense scrutiny on the musical that brings out all its faults and virtues and makes the audience forget that a concert version can’t portray the special effects and barricades of a full stage production. The sometimes clichéd words, the sometimes repetitive music are sublimated by the scope, heart and humanity of Hugo’s multi-charactered novel which makes clichés and repetition a part of human nature.

          I first read the novel in Classic Comics as a child and it leant itself very well to that now much-used graphic medium.

          This production is fortunate in having J. Mark McVey repeat his London and Broadway starring role as Jean Valjean, stalked by ominous and powerful Brian Stokes Mitchell as Javert, the implacable policeman who won’t let his innocuous crime rest.  As the tragic Fantine, Melora Hardin gives us an unforgettable “I Dreamed A Dream”. Lea Michele delivers a passionate rendition of the show’s great ballad “On My Own”. The young lovers, played by Michele Maika  as Cosette and John Lloyd Young (Frankie Valli in the original “Jersey Boys”) as Marius, have clear, almost operatic quality voices.

          This is not only a lovely way to spend a summer evening but, by the purity and power of its pared-down essence, a production that sets the bar for Les Miserables.

By Laura Hitchcock

Presented at The Hollywood Bowl, August 8-10, 2008.  Hollywood Bowl Reservations:  (323) 850-2000.