Les Misérables

Musical (1985)
Music by Claude-Michel Schönberg
Lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer
Directed by Laurence Connor and James Powell
Broadway in Boston
Citizens Opera House, Washington Street, Boston
June 9-28, 2026

Original French text by Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel; Additional material by James Fenton; Adaptation by Trevor Nunn and John Caird; New Orchestrations by Stephen Metcalfe, Christopher Jahnke and Stephen Brooker; Original Orchestrations by John Cameron; Musical Staging by Geoffrey Garrat; Projections realized by Finn Ross and Fifty-Nine Productions; Sound by Mick Potter; Lighting by Paule Constable; Original Costume Design by Andreane Neofitou; Additional Costume Design by Christine Rowland and Paul Wills; Set and Image Design by Matt Kinley, inspired by the paintings of Victor Hugo

Wigs, Hair & Make-Up Designer: Stefan Alexander; Resident Director: Kyle Timson; Musical Supervision: Stephen Brooker and James Moore; Musical Director: Glenn Alexander II

With Nick Cartell (Jean Valjean), Hayden Tee (Javert), Lindsay Heather Pearce (Fantine), Jaedynn Latter (Éponine), Alexa Lopez (Cosette), Peter Neureuther (Marius), Daniel Gerard Bittner (Enjolras), Matt Crowle (Thénardier), Victoria Huston-Elem (Madame Thénardier), Lillian Castner (Young Cosette, Young Éponine), Kayla Scola-Giampapa (Young Cosette, Young Éponine)

After nineteen years in prison for stealing some bread to feed his starving sister and her child, Jean Valjean (Nick Cartell) has escaped, though Inspector Javert (Hayden Tee) has not forgotten him and is obsessed with returning Valjean to jail. But Valjean has done well – become mayor of the town, and is highly respected. The plight of Fantine (Lindsay Heather Pearce) comes before Valjean and he takes pity on her. When Fantine dies after giving birth to a daughter, Cosette (Alexa Lopez), Valjean takes her in as his ward. Years pass, and Cosette grows up into a lovely young woman. It is now 1832 and the autocratic reign of Louis Philippe, who has succeeded Napoleon and a series of brief reigns by various other kings, and a rebellion is taking place. Students have built a barricade in Paris to protest the harsh rule of Louis Philippe, and an armed conflict ensues. Cosette has fallen in love with Marius (Peter Neureuther), one of the student leaders. He is also loved, though it is unrequited, by another of the protesters, Éponine (Jaedynn Latter), who pines for him despite his attentions to Cosette.

Les Miserables, the musical, has now achieved iconic status. It first appeared in France in 1980 and was followed in 1985 with an English language version in London, so it has been around now for over forty years. It is monumental and charming in so many ways that it, understandably, has survived the frequent destiny of many musicals to episodically reappear and simply disappear. Les Miz miraculously just keeps on cookin’.

I had seen the production in Boston quite some years ago, and it was a pleasure to see it again. I don’t remember details of the production from those years back, but it seems that the current production shares significant aspects of design with that older version, most notable in the extended scene with the barricade. Some of the video effects – particularly those depicting Valjean’s escape through the Paris sewers, and Javert’s final aqueous turn – are new. All in all, the production is very nicely designed, with sets moving in and out, seamlessly changing scenes between elegant courtyards and embattled city streets. As a traveling production, this setup is magisterial and impressive; one can only imagine the ordeals of the stage crew to cart it around and get it set up in new locations at regular intervals – hats off to them.

This production features some particularly nice voices, notably Lindsay Heather Pearce as Fantine, and Jaedynn Latter as Éponine. Both have rich and resonant vocal tone and bring forth their solos beautifully, with the iconic numbers I Dreamed A Dream by Pearce as Fantine, and On My Own by Latter as Éponine. Simply hearing those two numbers done so richly and so well would make this production a worthwhile outing.

Matt Crowle’s wonderfully buffoonish Thénardier is a laugh a minute, with Victoria Huston-Elem as his equally funny and ridiculous wife Madame Thénardier. He shines, along with a good chunk of the company in the famous rouser Master of the House, energetic and full of bawdy verve.

As Jean Valjean, Nick Cartell is certainly affecting, and his voice is sweet but it comes across as a bit muted. That might be a function of sound management, but some of the other vocalists come across so clearly that it just might be due to the less vivid timbre of his voice. Nonetheless, his great number Who Am I? delivers just fine.

The young actors in the show – Lillian Castner and Kayla Scola-Giampapa as the Young Cosette and the Young Éponine – are charming and heartbreaking.

It took another viewing of the show to realize how condensed the story is from the great and expansive novel by Victor Hugo. Though the bases get tagged in the show, some of the elements that are so vivid in the novel – particularly having to do with Jean Valjean’s generosity and nobility of spirit – don’t get as much time as they deserve.

Instead, the show spends a huge amount of time at the barricade, which is somewhat understandable given the size and unwieldiness of that set component. Curiously, the rebellion depicted in the novel, and in the show, often mistaken for something during the French Revolution, is a quite short-lived one that took place in 1832, about forty years after the revolution. Though justified, and in opposition to Louis Phillipe’s autocratic reign, it was a rebellion that lasted only two days. How all the narrative pieces fit together – the love story between Cosette and Marius, Valjean’s battle with Javert, and the rebellion – is not always so clear. Hugo makes a big deal of the rebellion in the novel, but it gets even more relative airtime in the show. A little bit more about Valjean’s nobility and a little less about the barricade might have been a good idea. But now that the show has proved itself as so durabile, that is unlikely to change.

The music, and the orchestration in particular, is gripping, but it is similar throughout – the same tonalities appear everywhere. Though composed in a generally similar pseudo-operatic style, that uniformity is not so evident in the somewhat later hit composed by Schönberg, Miss Saigon (1989), where musical themes are a bit more varied.

Sets and lighting are done vividly and effectively. The new videos of the sewer escape and Javert’s tumble are a bit obtuse – one gets the idea, but they are so much more muted than the other vivid production elements, that they do not quite work.

It is truly amazing and admirable that this show has the longevity and popularity that it does – despite some of its shortcomings, there is something magical about it. All in all, a very satisfying time at the theater.

– BADMan (aka Charles Munitz)