`Les Miserables,” the once and future musical of our century, has returned to the Auditorium Theatre, its cast changed, its power undiminished.
The current edition, the fourth to play here in the last decade, is the sturdy touring version, indistinguishable in all but the smallest details from the original London and New York productions; and those many audience members who are seeing the show a second or third or fourth time will probably discover that the present cast distinguishes itself for the discipline of its ensemble and the depth of its acting strength.
The musical’s two major roles, that of the saintly ex-convict, Jean Valjean, and his unrelenting nemesis, the police inspector Javert, are in good hands. Gregory Calvin Stone, a youngish Valjean, has a lighter tenor than some of his predecessor’s in the role, but few have better controlled the power of their singing or caught the emotional depths of such lyric numbers as “Who Am I?” and “Bring Him Home.”
Todd Alan Johnson, as the rigidly moral Javert, can step up to the front of the stage and boom out his galvanizing solo, “Stars,” with the best of his predecessors; and again, as he faces his final defeat, he brings the house down with his soliloquy.
What remains constant in this production, with all the shifts in emphasis that a changing cast can bring, is the majesty of the story, the power of the songs and the supremacy of the stagecraft.
“Les Miserables,” introduced by producer Cameron Mackintosh and the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1985 in London, represents the peak performance of every member of its creative team.
Composer Claude-Michel Schonberg and librettist Alain Boublil, spinning out infinite variations on less than a dozen basic melodies, produced a haunting, indelible, unparalleled sing-through pop opera, one that will last long after the hothouse 20th Century works of the nation’s opera houses have faded into oblivion.
English lyricist Herbert Kretzmer and orchestrator John Cameron, a master of pulling the harp strings, added to the glories of the songs.
Directors John Caird and Trevor Nunn, using the glorious turntable setting designed by John Napier and the brilliant lighting design of David Hersey, adapted the work for the stage and directed it with an unceasing flow of energy, condensing Victor Hugo’s massive 19th Century novel into a tremendous 3 1/2-hour work of contemporary theatrical imagination.
Whether you are seeing the show for the first time or the eighth (as is the case with this reviewer), you will be mightily impressed with the spectacular stage pictures that this production unfolds, whether it shows a single figure in a spotlight against a background of stars or a mass of revolutionaries clambering about the barricades in a Paris uprising.
Behind all this, of course, is the inspiration of the Hugo novel, which brings home its final message from Valjean, “a man, no worse than any other man,” who tells us that “to love another person is to see the face of God.”
It is a sublime truth in a sublime musical.
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“Les Miserables”
When: Through Feb. 28
Where: Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Congress Pkwy.
Phone: 312-902-1500
