Rekindling The Passion That Is “Les Mis”

I browsed through my DVD collection one day looking for something that I've been missing. At last I found it; it's the 10^th Anniversary Concert of LES MISÉRABLES. This gala concert was held last October 8, 1995 at the Royal Albert Hall in London in celebration of its 10^th year anniversary of its world premiere. This concert starred the original "Jean ValJean", Colm Wilkinson, who led a company of 250 artists and 100 musicians. To top it all, our very own Lea Salonga played the role of Eponine. This is the main reason why I bought this DVD before, because my idol is part of it. The 10th anniversary concert was filmed for television and has since been seen by over 4 Million viewers in the United Kingdom. The video has gone on to sell over 1.4 million copies worldwide, including over 555,000 copies in the UK.

Produced by Cameron Mac Kintosh and written by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg, LES MISÉRABLES is widely recognized as the world's most popular musical, touching millions of lives over its history-making run. With this DVD, the full magnificence of its captivating score is revealed like never before. This concert featured 150 voice choir, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and many of the most celebrated stars who have appeared in the show worldwide. The specially arranged finale featured 17 different "Jean Valjeans" singing in many of the languages in which the show has been performed.

Whenever I watched this DVD, I always turn on the subtitles so that I could sing along with the artists thereby grasp the whole storyline of the show. Lea Salonga was superb in her portrayal as Eponine with her signature solo number "On My Own". Lea became the first Asian actress ever to play Eponine on Broadway in LES MISÉRABLES in 1993, reprising that performance in the London production, in Hawaii, and in this legendary 10th Anniversary Concert. In 2006, she returned to Broadway as Fantine in the new production of LES MISÉRABLES and stayed on until the summer of 2007.

I can't say more about this phenomenon called LES MISÉRABLES but I guess most of you are familiar with the two most popular songs from this musical: "I Dream A Dream" and "On My Own". Searching the Internet, I've found some of the facts and figures about this show and here is more of the information:

• 56 professional companies have opened Les Misérables in various countries and cities worldwide.
• Productions have played in 38 countries and 223 cities.
• Les Misérables has been translated into 21 different languages.
• The production has played over 38,000 professional performances worldwide giving a total audience figure of more than 51 million people.
• There have been 31 cast recordings of Les Misérables (including albums, singles and the symphonic).
• Les Misérables has won over 50 major theatre awards, a Grammy for the Broadway cast album and a Triple Platinum Disc for the London cast album which has now sold over 1,030,000 copies in the U.K. The highlights album has gone gold in the UK and Australia and the Les Misérables in Concert album has gone gold in the UK.
• A song from the show, "One Day More", was used for Bill Clinton's 1992 US Presidential Campaign. "Do You Hear the People Sing" was played over TV newscast from the student protest in Tiananmen Square. "Bring Him Home" was officially requested by the US State Department to use as background for promotional material about the US troops engaged in the Gulf war.
• There are approximately 101 cast and crew directly involved in every performance not including front of house staff, and the huge back up services including ticket sales, advertising, wardrobe staff, set contractors, maintenance, office staff, advertising and publicity.
• Each performance entails some 392 complete costumes consisting of some 1782 items of clothing and 31 wigs.
• The longest running production is in London where it played 7,602 performances at the Palace Theatre before transferring to the Queen's Theatre where it opened on 3 April 2004. It is the longest running musical both at the Palace Theatre and in the west end.
• On 25 January 2002 the New York production overtook A Chorus Line to become the second longest running show in Broadway history. A record that it held until 4 February 2004 when it was overtaken by the Phantom of the Opera.
  

The facts and figures that I presented in this post were taken from online searches particularly http://www.lesmis.com/index2.htm