USHE Announcement: Les Miserables 25th Anniversary (Blu-ray)

Never seen the show or heard any previous recording but received this for Christmas and really enjoyed it.  Only the vocals for Marius seemed a little weak.  Picture quality and sound both good.

It is a concert version and lacks the full stage scenery. If you like "Little Britain" then you will enjoy the cameo by Matt Lucas as the innkeeper.

 

There is a brief mention in the credits that Universal are going to produce a cinema version.

Who plays Marius? I'm assuming Lea Salonga is playing Eponine, but who's singing the other major roles?

Alfie Boe as ‘Jean Valjean’,

Nick Jonas as ‘Marius’,

Norm Lewis as ‘Javert’,

Matt Lucas as ‘Thénardier’,

Lea Salonga as ‘Fantine’,

Jenny Galloway as ‘Madame Thénardier’,

Katie Hall as ‘Cosette’

 

I think Nick Jonas is one half of a pop group "Jonas Brothers"

Nick is 1/3 of the Jonas Brothers, and the fact that his vocals are weak is unsurprising.

I wish they'd put out a film of an actual performance instead of yet another "in concert" version.

 

Amazon lists the MSRP as $57!

Works out at less than $20.00 on Amazon UK.  Only one disc though and not sure if it is region free.  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Miserables-25th-Anniversary-Blu-ray/dp/B0041G683W/ref=sr_1_3?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1294349488&sr=1-3

 

Edit:  Link added.  Some reviews on Amazon UK as well.

A Jonas Brother in Les Mis. I can't even begin to describe how wrong this is. Did they learn nothing from the Complete Symphonic Recording when they had Gary Morris doing Valjean? And I'm going to wager Morris is a superior singer to Nick Jonas.

 

Oh well, at least they made him Marius rather than Valjean. I am not as passionate for Marius's songs as I am for Valjean, Javert, Fantine and Eponine, so as long as they have strong performers in those roles I may be happy with this production.

 

No Philip Quast and Colm Wilkinson really hurts this (though admittedly they may be too old now).

I ordered this last month from Amazon.co.uk. It should be arriving any day now.

And I liked the Complete Symphonic Recording.

The cast list at IMDB includes Colm Wilkinson. From the reviews posted there it seems his participation is during the encore.

I saw the one night theatrical release of this and the entire original cast performed "One Day More".  Also, Nick Jonas was by far the worst performance of the night.

 

Agree. I saw this in a cinema screening, and while it was fun (except for the Jonas brother, who is unbelievably weak, and constantly overpowered by the woman playing Cosette), and the music is great, it often does not work in these barely-staged concert versions. Jean Valjean stands on stage, does nothing, and suddenly Javert is talking about how "I've only once before seen someone that strong"? It's often difficult to tell if people have or haven't died, since they're still standing around on stage - a problem that becomes absurd in the big barricade scenes where there are lots of smoke and gunfire and lasers, but none of the dozen of characters on screen actually visibly dying.

 

 

I assume this is about the cinema screenings of this concert, rather than (as I first read this comment) a Les Miserables movie musical (which I would love to see made, and which I was disappointed never happened during the recent movie musical boom).

I am fairly certain Universal are to make a movie version of Les Mis.  There was a programme on UK television about the 25 years of Les Miserables and Cameron Mackintosh stated that, after long negotiations, they had come to agreement with Universal for the making of a screen version.

Colm Wilkinson does only appear in the reprise at the end. 

 

From the UK press release for the  dvd/BluRay, "Cameron Mackintosh is currently developing a film of Les Misérables with Working Title and Universal".

 

Edit:  Added line from press release.
 

Edited by Brian Sharp - 1/9/11 at 12:41am

It's too bad that Nick Jonas seems to have dragged-down this event...because I was really hoping this would be worthy of an "upgrade" over my DVD of the "Dream Cast" Concert.  Like Ron, I was waiting for that Superbit--with hopefully upgraded audio--which never came. 

 

But anything with Lea Salonga in it gets me to lean towards making a purchase...as long as it's not too expensive. 

 

That is exciting news. Hope it all comes together. 

I'm a pretty big Les Mis fan, have seen the stage show many times in London and on Broadway. I own CDs of the London, Broadway, Complete Symphonic, Original French and 10th Anniversary recordings.

 

We all have our favourite roles and performers to go with them.

 

The 10th Anniversary DVD release cast was great but the visuals and audio were just okay.

 

This Blu-Ray is a real mixed bad. Visuals are okay, it looks like some smoothing has been added, or perhaps this is inherent in the camera. I would give it a rating of B, as it does not live up to my expectations for the format.

 

The casting is bizarre to say the least.

 

Alfie Boe as ‘Jean Valjean’ - He is great, my favourite Jean Valjean. We have booked to see him in the London show this summer. I did not see Colm in his prime. Previous favourite was David Willetts

Nick Jonas as ‘Marius’ - A real disaster, very nervous, doesn't have the singing chops, ruined "One Day More". I actually like the Jonas brothers, seen them in concert with my daughter.

Norm Lewis as ‘Javert’ - Not to my taste at all, took the character in a very different direction, this is my favourite role so deeply disappointing. I was lucky enough to see Philip Quarst more than once in London in this role.

Matt Lucas as ‘Thénardier' - I always liked Alum Armstrong in this role, you have to believe that Thenardier is capable of sisnster things, he is not just comedy relief. Matt played the role for laughs, there was no menance of bite about him.

Lea Salonga as ‘Fantine’ - I was never much of a fan of Lea during her hayday with Miss Siagon. But I have to say here performance was a revelation, brought tears to my eyes, with out doubt the best rendition of this role for me.

I'm holding the UK version in my hands - it's region free as far as I can tell from the cover text (caveat: I haven't actually played the BD on my US-machine).

 

Note: I don't remember if some of the extras were SDVD, in which case they could be PAL. The main feature isn't, of course.

 

Same here. And I've seen several London versions.

 

 

Cees
 

Brian, that's great news!

 

I'm not a fan of bare-bones "staged concert" performances either.  I saw Chicago on Broadway, which had a very minimalist production, and I liked the movie *much* better.

I am watching the UK edition now. The sole supplement is something called "A Whiz Thru Miz" which plays back fine. It's a fluff piece about 5 minutes long. The main feature plays fine as well.

This is the edited version of the show, shortened over the years to bring the running time with intermission to under 3 hours. I'm glad the Complete Symphonic Recording is around; it was made before the edits.

The only reason I see to get the US version of this disc is to get the subtitles...the UK edition only has subtitles in English and German.

Amazon has delivered this title to me on release day.  Woohoo!

 

I have always said that if an angel appeared on Earth and opened its voice to sing...it would be Lea Salonga's voice which came out.  Such diction (you can hear every letter of every word), such tone, such pitch.  Pure crystal. 

 

I am now 40 minutes in and think the sound is absolutely stunning.  Ron:  Don't wait.  Run to add this to your collection.

 

Of course, I make that recommendation and Nick Jonas has yet to hit the stage. 

 

I am no student of the musical Les Miserables...but over the years have slowly come to appreciate the score and production.  I've even seen it on Broadway!

Here's my mini-review.

 

I finished Act I Tuesday night and watched Act II on Wednesday night (last night).

 

First off, I thought the audio was superb.  So many times I am disappointed in the recording of large orchestras and choruses (especially when mixed with solo voices).  This is an extremely well-mixed, dynamic recording which really blew the doors off my rather budget-minded system (Polk R30s in the front, Polk R15s for surrounds and a Polk CSi25 center channel).  The voices (many of them fabulous) are reproduced beautifully here and the orchestra and chorus are majestic as they filled my room as I'm imagining they filled that huge concert hall in which the concert took place (the O2 in London which holds 23k,000).

 

I thought the video looked very good as well...but I'm only watching on a very forgiving 32" Vizio 1080p set.  Although dark in many instances, the stage lighting seemed satisfactory to provide the necessary detail on the performers.  Large screens were deployed behind the stage for the venue audience which are, at times, distracting when seen in wide shots of the stage as the video on the screens lagged slightly behind the live action. 

 

And one of the fun things about an event such as this are the discussions and arguments which can be had surrounding the cast and comparisons with performers who have filled these roles in the past.  Personally, I thought Nick Jonas was, indeed, pretty bad and tremendously suffered when on-stage with numerus other performers with whom he, quite simply, could not keep up.  [I proposed a drinking game to my wife that viewers should take a drink every time Jonas showed up on stage with a constipated look on his face.  But I'm afraid noone would make it to the end of the show!]  I also thought the casting of Matt Lucas as Thernadier was unfortunate as I didn't think he had the voice necessary for such a major role.  A role like that can be forgiving to a lesser voice...but Lucas still didn't pull it off.  And it's unfortunate for him to have the obvious comparison with Alun Armstrong who played the role in the 10th Anniversary production.  Samantha Barks, who is starring in a current London production, played Eponine.  And the 10th Anniversary's Eponine, Lea Salonga, slid into the role of Fantine and did the most wondrous I Dreamed a Dream ever (sorry Susan Boyle). 

 

For me, this Blu-ray disc takes a HUGE stage event and does a beautiful job bringing it into our homes. 

I'll have a review up this weekend, if it will help.

 

Something tells me fans of this production are already evaluating it as we speak...

Watching this on PBS right now. Wow Nick Jonas is bad. He sticks out like a sore thumb...er...voice. Just read online he's dating Eponine, so I guess that's how he got on. She's got all the vocal talent in that couple.

 

I like this Javert. Still behind Philip Quast for me, but very good. Boe acquits himself as the production goes on, but I didn't juve with his take on how the early Valjean songs were sung. The rest of the cast is solid to very good. Will probably pick this up, but I'm trying to find a way to overdub Michael Ball's vocals on top of Jonas's...

Sorry for the delay on the review - I have to confess not knowing this show before watching this disc.  I'm also not familiar with the Jonas Brothers or with Nick, but I wasn't thrown out of the show by his performance.

 

I was enchanted by the whole production, particularly the encore.

 

The short version of what my review will say is:

 

The picture quality is quite good from what I can see, considering that you're trying to see stage lighting effects on high def video, which is a difficult idea to pull off.   Looks to me like some of the footage in the encore has more of a digital feel to it, but that's a reflection of the cameras being used, and not of the transfer. 

 

The sound quality in the DTS-HD MA mix has a really nice effect to it - the surrounds actually function to put you in the middle of the audience at the performance - so the music and singing can be heard faintly with a bit of an echo behind the viewer.

Kevin - is this your first Les Mis experience? I ask because although I've never liked the character of Marius (only slightly less annoying to me than Cosette), the person who originated the role, Michael Ball, set quite a high bar. Even in the subsequent times I've seen the play, the person playing Marius is generally one of the better singers in the ensemble. That's why I find Jonas's performance so awful. It has nothing to do with being who he is, it has everything to do with his performance especially in comparison with the rest of the cast on the BD. But that's just my experience, YMMV.

I watched this on PBS a few times over the past week.  I like how it's more of a staging than just a concert, but I'd still rather see a full production filmed.  My sister and I had to explain to my wife how spectacular the action "really" was in a lot of places.

 

Funny story -- when Javert came out to sing, my sister exclaimed "hey, I know that guy!"  Apparently Norm Lewis was in some show that she worked on years ago (Sideshow, maybe).

 

Carlo, this is indeed my first experience with Les Miz, and I admit being completely charmed by the whole thing, particularly the encore material.

 

I really think the encore by itself makes this a must-purchase for fans of the show.

 

I've also read that Alfie Boe is taking over as Jean Valjean this year in London.

Oh I completely agree. I will be buying this for myself as well. I'm actually motivated to try and see it when it's on its limited run in L.A. over the summer.

He's very good in this.  I really liked him in the role.