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The most recent Tampa engagement of Les Miserables reminds both the composer and fans of "the world's most popular musical'' that initially this adaptation was given little hope of success.
By JOHN FLEMING
© St. Petersburg Times, published February 22, 2001
Speaking from his home in Paris recently, Claude-Michel Schonberg was playing reviewer. The composer was asked which was his favorite recording among the several of Les Miserables, the megamusical he wrote with lyricist Alain Boublil.
"The very best recording is the 10th anniversary concert, which had a dream cast," said Schonberg, referring to the 1995 Royal Albert Hall concert with Colm Wilkinson, Michael Ball and Lea Salonga, among others.
"Not only did we have the best people in the best parts, but at the same time we didn't have the chance to rehearse it, so there was such electricity in the air. When we opened the evening, everyone was so tense. I never heard anything so emotionally live."
Les Miserables is billed as "the world's most popular musical," and a national tour is in the middle of its fifth engagement at Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center since first hitting the road shortly after opening on Broadway in 1987. With a youthful cast, the touring company substitutes energy for what it lacks in star power and polish, but you can still get an idea of what made the show so revolutionary in the first place.
"They thought we were completely mad to touch such a big, complicated story, to put Victor Hugo's novel on stage," Schonberg said. "They thought it was going to be a disaster with 30 people dying on stage, no tap dance and no happy ending."
Dominated by John Napier's junkyard barricade of a set on a turntable and David Hersey's incredibly dark lighting design, it was the first hit musical to be entirely sung-through -- that is, without spoken dialogue. Subsequent Boublil-Schonberg musicals Miss Saigon and Martin Guerre have taken the same pop-operatic approach.
"We aren't good enough to have spoken dialogue go into songs," Schonberg said. "I think that's the most difficult thing to do in a musical. Only Stephen Sondheim knows how to do it."
One of the interesting things about Les Miserables is how Boublil and Schonberg and producer Cameron Mackintosh have continued to tinker with the show. Several years ago, they shut down the Broadway production and recast it to try to stave off the staleness that inevitably overtakes long-running shows.
Not long ago, Schonberg took on the task of trimming the musical, reducing the running time from about three hours and 13 minutes, including intermission, to just under three hours. The cuts were motivated by new union rules calling for overtime for musicians and other company members after 11 p.m. (curtain is 8 p.m. in New York). But the composer thinks the cost-saving measures also improved the show.
"It's a lot of cutting, but Les Miz was a very long show," he said. "We realized that the show is better now and sounds and looks fresher. Even people who know the show very well didn't realize we made some cuts."
No musical numbers or scenes were cut. "Mainly it's 30 seconds here, 12 seconds there," Schonberg said. "It's not dramatic. Sometimes you realize that there is a repetition, that some characters are saying the same thing twice."
The cuts were made in the Broadway production, but they haven't been put into the tour, whose performance last Friday ran until almost 11:20 p.m. Eventually, the standard Les Miz will be the shorter version.
"When you are cutting 13, 15 minutes from a show, there is much rehearsing to put the cuts in," Schonberg said. "In terms of staging, computerization of the lights and the set, it is a big job."
Schonberg and Boublil got lots of practice rewriting on their latest musical, Martin Guerre, based on the story of an imposter in 16th century France.
"There were 21/2 versions," Schonberg said. "One version in London. Then we did a version for the English national tour. And we made changes in the touring production we started in Minneapolis last year."
In all the versions, Martin Guerre never completely won over critics and never made it to Broadway.
"We had problems with the storytelling. Maybe it was not the right time for the show. I know the subject is very complicated for a musical. People used to say that a musical has to be very simple, black and white. It's not a black and white show."
Still, Schonberg thinks the musical was far from a flop, considering its run in London. "Two and a half years is not bad for a show in London. The average run of a show is not 10 or 12 years. That is an exception, but we've been spoiled by exceptions like Les Miz and Miss Saigon."
In January, Schonberg was in New York for the final performance of Miss Saigon, which closed after almost 10 years.
"I was prepared to be very sad, and I must say, it was one of the most wonderful, joyful evenings in my life," he said.
"Remember, we didn't get any Tony Awards for that show. All the awards for best score or best musical went to City of Angels and The Secret Garden. Miss Saigon was only a subject of controversy, with the politically correct people saying we gave the wrong image of the Asian woman. It was not taken as a real piece of work. And it ended up running more than nine years on Broadway."
Les Miserables runs through Sunday at Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. Tickets: $22-$61.50. (813) 229-7827 or (800) 955-1045.