The final performances of Marguerite in Ostrava will be as follows:

5 June,   20 June (2 performances),      27 June

There will be a new cast at the Queen’s Theatre, London from 18 June 2012.  Argentinan, Gerónimo Rauch, who played Jean Valjean in the recent Spanish production of Les Misérables, will take over the role in London, while Tam Mutu, who recently played the Phantom in Love Never Dies, will play Javert.  Danielle Hope, winner of the BBC’s Over the Rainbow and subsequently playing Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz will play Eponine.  In the TV search programme one of the songs that Danielle sang was ‘On My Own’ and now she will be singing it every night in the role for real.

Ramin Karimloo will continue in the role of Jean Valjean until 31 March when David Shannon will return to the role until 16 June.  David will also be representing Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest alongside Una Gibrey with their song ‘Language of Love’.

The Les Misérables film began shooting on locations in southern France on 8 March and Alain, Claude-Michel and Herbie Kretzmer have written a new song for the movie for Jean Valjean called ‘Suddenly’.

Brian Stokes Mitchell, Lea Salonga, Stephanie J. Block, Terrence Mann, Marie Zamora and Peter Lockyer.

The casting for the Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Ottawa Concerts is:

Jennifer Paz, Kathy Voytko, Terrence Mann, Marie Zamora and Eric Kunze.

Click below to see a short video of Conductor Jack Everly talking about the Ottawa Concert

Marie Zamora’s Ostrava production of Marguerite has been nominated for a Thalie Award which is the highest theatrical prize in the Czech Republic. 

Lukas Vlcek and Hana Fialova

The Jury of the Czech Actors Association has nominated the musical and Hana Fialová, in the leading role for outstanding female stage performance in 2011, in the category of Operetta, Musical and other Musical-Dramatic Genre.

Cameron Mackintosh also revealed that Frances Ruffelle will have a feature role as ‘the most fabulous whore’ in the movie.  Although she won’t have a song of her own she will be part of the group of prostitutes who sing ‘Lovely Ladies’.  Cameron also confirmed that while the stage show has just 28 actors the film will have scores of parts for West End performers.

The key roles cast so far are: Jean Valjean: Hugh Jackman,  Javert: Russell Crowe,  Fantine: Anne Hathaway,  Marius: Eddie Redmayne,  Cosette: Amanda Seyfried,  Enjolras: Aaron Tveit,  Eponine: Samantha Barks.  Other key roles are still in negotiation.

Do You Hear The People Sing Concert

A new date has been added to the concert tour:

AMERICAN AIRLINES CENTRE, DALLAS, TX                                                                            March 23, 2012                                                   

This epic sized concert is modelled on the Les Misérables 25th Anniversary Concert at London’s O2 Arena and will feature a two level stage with larger than life video screens and state of the art sound system.  With the Dallas Pops Orchestra and a 100 plus chorus the vocalists announced so far are Lea Salonga and Brian Stokes Mitchell.

Claude-Michel playing 'Bring Him Home'

Claude-Michel played ‘Bring Him Home’ at the Royal Festival Hall on 7 December as he accompanied Alfie Boe for this very special song.  It was incredibly moving to watch him play live in a big concert hall like this and he received thunderous applause from the audience.

Claude-Michel

Alfie Boe’s concert Tour is in fact titled: ‘The Bring Him Home Tour’.  He sung an eclectic mix of songs from many different genres including pop and classic rock songs, musical theatre songs and even showed how musical boundaries can be merged as he sang ’O Sole Mio’ and the lyrics of the second half became ‘It’s Now or Never’. 

Alfie Boe

Other memorable songs were: ‘Some Enchanted Evening’, ‘Maria’, ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’, ‘When I Fall In Love’, ‘Tell Me It’s Not True’, and ‘In My Daughter’s Eyes’, which was accompanied by a delightful black and white movie of Alfie and his three year old daughter Grace.

Alfie Boe & Matt Lucas

 Alfie was joined by some other special guests: Tom Fletcher from McFly, Melanie C, Laura Wright, a little girl called Shakira who sang ‘Castle On A Cloud’ and Matt Lucas, who duetted with Alfie for ‘The Impossible Dream’ and contributed various funny comments throughout the evening.

Tom Fletcher & Alfie Boe

Alain Boublil and Herbert Kretzmer were seated in the audience and each took a bow after Alfie had introduced them.

Claude-Michel and Alfie Boe

Claude-Michel. Photo by Charlotte Schonberg

 This performance was streamed live at cinemas all over the UK.

Further tour dates can be found at www.alfie-boe.com/events and the DVD of the concert will be available on 5 March 2012.

The Songs of My Life, a concert celebrating the life and career of Peter Polycarpou, took place at the Garrick Theatre on Sunday 11December.  Peter along with guests Simon Bowman, Claire Moore and Hannah Waddingham sang a diverse mix of Musical Theatre songs.  Perhaps two of the most memorable were ‘Bui Doi’ from Miss Saigon and a rather wonderful Greek accented take on ‘Master of The House’ with Claire Moore as Madame Thénardier!

theater2k is a brilliant, informative website which traces West End and Broadway Musical Theatre history from 2000 onwards.

Do You Hear The People Sing – The Dream Concert

This star-studded cast of Boublil and Schönberg stalwarts included Lea Salonga, who created the role of Kim in Miss Saigon and played both Eponine and Fantine on Broadway, Stephanie J. Block, who created the role of Grace O’Malley in The Pirate Queen, Marie Zamora, who played the original Cossette in the Paris theatrical production of Les Misérables, Peter Lockyer, who played Chris in Miss Saigon and Marius in Les Misérables, both on Broadway, and Terrence Mann, who played Javert on Broadway.

Claude-Michel

The soaring sweep of Claude-Michel’s music has always lent itself so well to big orchestral arrangements and the 80 piece Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra did it more than justice.  The concert overture quite simply blew me away as it moved with brief musical phrases of songs from one show after another.  No sooner had you identified ‘I Dreamed A Dream’ it became ‘Do You Hear The People Sing’, then ‘Bring Him Home’, ‘Martin Guerre’, ‘The Heat Is On In Saigon’, ‘At The End of The Day’, ‘Why God Why?’ and so on.  It was a breathtaking display of thrilling musicality, interweaving slow lyrical ballads with fast-paced dramatic rhythms that really whetted the appetite for the concert to come.

Jack Everly

We first heard a good selection of songs from Miss Saigon starting with the choir and Terrence singing ‘Bui Doi’, and ‘The Heat is On’.  Lea sang a heartfelt rendition of ‘I’d Give My Life For You’ and was then joined by Peter for the lovely, romantic duet ‘The Last Night Of The World’.  This was followed by ‘Now That I’ve Seen Her’ and with Stephanie’s powerful, emotive voice it was extraordinarily moving.  I was personally very pleased to hear again the beautiful, original opening lines: ‘There are days when your life clouds over’, which had disappointingly been changed in later productions.  In between the songs and throughout the concert there was a lively and humorous conversational interaction between conductor Jack Everly and the vocalist on stage.  This gave background information on the writing of each show and the raison d’être for each song and that character’s emotions so that even if you were not familiar with one particular show you would have a real feel for the story.  There were also amusing individual anecdotes from each performer and these dialogues between the songs gave the concert a very personal feel that totally engaged the audience.  The Miss Saigon section ended with Terrence as a sleazy Engineer inciting the audience to much laughter with his comic antics in ‘The American Dream’.

Marie Zamora and Stephanie J. Block

We next heard a song from La Revolution Franςaise, ‘Au Petit Matin’ (A Little Morning), which Marie Antoinette sings after she has been told she is to face the guillotine.  Marie Zamora’s gorgeous, soulful voice together with Claude-Michel’s haunting music made it easy to be filled with emotion without even understanding the words.  Peter then mesmerised us with a powerful rendition of ‘Martin Guerre’ before dueting with Marie for ‘Live With Somebody You Love’.  This was sung so tenderly it gave me goose bumps and was possibly my favourite song of the evening.  ‘Land of Our Fathers’ sung stirringly by all the vocalists concluded the Martin Guerre section.

Before the Intermission we heard songs that had been ‘reinvented, rearranged or removed’.  ‘I Saw Him Once’, sung by Marie, was originally Cosette’s song but had to be taken out because the show had been running too long at over three and a half hours.  It seems a shame to have lost such a beautiful song as was also the case for Lea’s next song ‘Too Much For One Heart’, which was felt to be one ballad too many for Kim.  The final song was a camped up ‘Glee’ version of ‘I Dreamed A Dream’ sung as a duet by Stephanie and Lea.  Although highly entertaining and well sung it was, for me, probably the only disappointment of the evening.  The audience, however, could not wait until the end of the concert to show their admiration and did so with loud cheering and a standing ovation before they even left for their interval drinks!

The Entr’Acte featured the distinctive music from The Pirate Queen but sounded somewhat different played by a big orchestra instead of the unique sound of an eleven piece Irish Band that played in the Broadway show.  Stephanie began this section with ‘Woman’, a song which expresses her character’s frustration at the limitations imposed on women in 16th Century Ireland.  Her powerfully distinctive voice brought the story to life and gained the loudest applause of the evening for an individual song.  She was joined by Peter for the beautiful, tentative ballad ‘If I Said I Loved You’ which then morphed into the final lines of the ‘Finale’: ‘May God bless the bride and groom’ and so revealed the only happy ending in a Boublil and Schönberg musical.  This sadly brought The Pirate Queen section to an end. 

Alain

The familiar booming chords of Les Misérables sounded amazing played by this symphonic orchestra and introduced the last part of the concert – the one everyone had been waiting for.  ‘On My Own’ was the first song up and given a delightful novel twist as it was sung as a classy duet by Marie and Lea.  Marie began with the original French version ‘Mon Histoire’ before Lea took up the more familiar English lines, harmonizing together in both languages for the final lines of the song.  What a sensational, unique version!  I find it rather a fascinating little repeat of history that although there were snippets of background to the writing of Les Misérables in the concert there was no need to ‘place’ the songs within the story because everyone knows it, in the same way that in the original French version at the Palais de Sports there was no need to tell the whole story because everyone in France knew Hugo’s novel.

All the cast and choir then joined together for ‘The End Of The Day’.  With the vocalists taking individual lines of the factory workers and the foreman they directed their comments to one front row member of the audience who had unwittingly been cast as Fantine!  We then moved on to a brilliantly staged and hilariously funny version of ‘Master Of The House’.  Terrence magically produced an apron from within his white shirt whilst Stephanie made an unusually seductive Madame Thénardier as they played this always crowd-pleasing song with much naughtiness and mischief.  Next was ‘In My Life’ with Marie and Peter as the young lovers and Lea as the lovelorn outsider Eponine.  This song merged into ‘A Heart Full Of Love’ and was followed by Terrence singing ‘Stars’ and Peter’s ‘Bring Him Home’, always two of the most memorable songs and superbly sung with great feeling.

Claude-Michel, Margaret and Alain after the concert

Both cast and choir joined together for a resounding rendition of ‘One Day More’.  This appeared to conclude the concert with the audience springing to their feet with rapturous applause and loud cheering and even more delighted with the appearance on stage of Alain and Claude-Michel themselves.  They were toasted with champagne and thanked on our behalf by Jack Everly before the opening chords of ‘Do You Hear The People Sing?’  The audience were seated again to enjoy this one last song with Alain and Claude-Michel joining in before final bows were taken and one last standing ovation.

This was the first concert of the series and it will probably evolve in time with maybe some different song choices.  The distinctive emotional quality of Claude-Michel’s music together with the calibre of these talented performers ensured that each number was not just a song but an exciting piece of drama.  It was absolutely thrilling to hear the music and songs from all their shows together on one evening.  The clever juxtaposition of songs and shows clearly demonstrated what an astonishing body of work Alain and Claude-Michel have created in their long partnership as the most successful musical theatre writing team in the world.

For further concert dates see News  August 2011.

 New dates have been announced for performances of the Czech Republic production of Marguerite at theNational Moravian-Silesian Theatre in Ostrava:

 Please note the final performance dates for Marguerite have now been changed.  See News: March 2012 for details.

19 November 2011

27 December 2011

25 February 2012

26 February 2012

10 March 2012

25 March 2012

22 May 2012

For further details of this production see News December 2010

For a review see Show Updates May 2011

 The cast includes Na-Young Jeon as Kim, Ton Sieben as Chris, Stanley Burleson as the Engineer, Brigitte Heitzer as Ellen, Edwin Jonker as John and Kok-Hwa Lie as Thuy.  This new production is directed by Laurence Connor, who has recently been directing the 25th Anniversary Tour of Les Misérables.  There is a new song for Ellen ‘Toch Nog’ (‘Maybe’) which has been written by Claude-Michel, Alain and Richard Maltby Jr. and translated into Dutch by Seth Gaaikema.  It replaces ‘Her Or Me’, which became ‘Now That I’ve Seen Her’, which Ellen sings after meeting Kim in the hotel room in Bangkok in the second act.  Brigitte, who won her first leading role for Evita in a television audition show,  is thrilled with her new song: ‘It’s so special that I am the first Ellen in the world to sing this song.  It’s an amazing song and it really gives a new dimension to the role of Ellen’.

The 25th Anniversay Production of Les Misérables continues its North American Tour and new tour dates and venues from 9 August 2011 to 20 May 2012 can be found on the Les Mis website www.lesmis.com  

The Spanish production of the 25th Anniversary show will play in Barcelona at the Barcelona Teatre Musical from 30 September 2011 to 11 December 2011.  Details at www.lesmis.com

Hugh Jackman will play Jean Valjean and Russell Crowe will play Javert in Working Title’s live-action film adaptation of Les Misérables.  The film will be directed by Tom Hooper, renowned for directing The King’s Speech, and this adaptation will be written by William Nicholson.  It will be produced by Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner with Cameron Mackintosh and Debra Hayward.  Liza Chasin is the executive producer.  Universal Pictures are releasing the film worldwide and the US release date is set for 7 December 2012.

No other casting has been confirmed as yet but Anne Hathaway has been offered the role of Fantine and Helena Bonham Carter has been asked to play Madame Thénardier.

After much speculation as to who would be cast as Javert, Russel Crowe auditioned in New York last week in front of Tom Hooper, Cameron Mackintosh, Alain and Claude-Michel, among others. 

Cameron Mackintosh commented:  Even though I have dreamt about making the film of Les Misérables for over 25 years, I could never have imagined that we would end up with the dream director Tom Hooper and the dream cast of Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe.  Not only were they born to play these roles vocally but they thrillingly inhabit this great score.  Producing this film with Eric Fellner, Working Title and Universal Picture is indeed a dream come true and I can’t wait to hear the people sing at my local cineplex.

A star-studded cast of Broadway performers will include: Stephanie J. Block, Terrence Mann, Peter Lockyer, Lea Salonga and Marie Zamora.

The creative team working with Alain and Claude-Michel includes: Co-Conceiver: Jason Moore, Music Director: Kevin Stites, Director: Jen Bender, Interstitial Dialogue: Blair Fell and Orchestrators: Bill Brohn and Chris Jahnke.

This unforgettable new concert evening is brought to you by Bouberg Productions and IMG Artists.

The concert website is: www.thepeoplesing.com

For the concert review see Show Updates October 2011