As a show Les Misérables is flawless. It has a captivating story that keeps you hooked which is displayed in a wonderful musical. One problem often associated with musicals is the lack of originality, shows, too often, consist of two or three individual numbers with the rest of the musical being filled with reprises or slight variations. Although there are songs like this in Les Miserables it doesn't seem so bad because the variation really is different!
For example, in the two Soliloquys the melody is the same, however, because of the different moods in both of the pieces they seem different. In other occurences where the tune is re-used, enough decoration is added to the songs to make them seem original.
As for this specific recording; the cast is mainly very strong. The role of Valjean is portrayed by Colm Wilkinson, the person who 'created' the role. His antagonist, Javert is also portrayed very well as Roger Allam's voice is superbly suited to the role. Michael Ball's portrayl of Marius is also very good. There are no awful voices in the production but some seem rather plain and, compared to other versions, slightly weak.
Also, in my opinion, the arrangement of the pieces are very good too. In other versions sometimes aspects of the Prologue are arranged poorly as are the Confrontation however this version has none of those problems.
Overall, this is a very good version of an incredible musical! Most of the principal's voices are very good and the arrangement is fantastic. It is a shame that the show is not recorded in it's entirety (some songs ar e adapted for CD and other sections are cut) although as a CD these edits do make sense.
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Disc 1 Work Song (Claude-Michel Schonberg) (Original London Cast Recording) Valjean ... more
Arrested - Valjean Forgiven (Claude-Michel Schonberg) (Les Miserables - OCR) What Have I Done? (Claude-Michel Schonberg) (Les Miserables - OCR) At The End Of The Day (C...
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