London’s longest-running musical has been redesigned and re-staged for this UK (and subsequently worldwide) tour. This all-new production includes scenographic projection throughout the show, all produced and implemented by 59, based around beautiful original paintings and artwork by Victor Hugo.
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Les Miserables opening in the west end, Cameron Mackintosh staged this huge and spectacular event featuring celebrities including Matt Lucas, Alfie Boe and Nick Jonas. Performed for a total of 32,000 people over two performances, the show was broadcast live around the world to cinemas in High Definition, and also recorded for a DVD and Blu-ray disk available worldwide. It has since been broadcast on US network television.
Three huge LED screens dominated the space, providing over 200 square metres of video playback which included live relay from the on-stage cameras, and a selection of the images and animation produced by 59 for the current world tour.
59 devised and controlled the entire video system used to deliver video to the screens.
After the spectacular success of the European tour of this re-design and re-imagining of Schoenberg and Boubel’s 25-year old classic – featuring animation and projection by 59 throughout – this North-American tour was launched in November 2011.
After the enormous success of the European and US tours, the production was re-designed and re-imagined to bring this 25-year old classic to Broadway.
The creative team was asked to re-imagine the show and has done so, not least by adding more Hugo and, I think, more intensity… Paris is transformed into towering slum buildings, below which citizens scurry like mice – but more than serviceable and, thanks to his use of film, much more so when Valjean carries his adopted daughter’s wounded lover through the Paris sewers or Javert throws himself deep through the misty air into a seething Seine. … if I were asked which is better, this or Trevor Nunn and John Caird’s London staging, I would be hard put to answer.
This Les Mis is simply marvellous… As for the sets, they are amazingly effective, beautifully lit and make you think that you are watching characters from a giant painting come to life. During the second act, a huge backdrop with projected images gives the impression that Valjean is walking for miles through the sewers with an unconscious Marius. It also adds impetus to the scene where Javert is standing on a bridge above the Seine… As far as I’m concerned, this is the best version.
The design palette is limited to gray on black — the universal colors of deep depression — with only a flash of red in the giant flag that the rebels carry to the barricade. In this lead-coffin context, Paule Constable’s murky lighting design is quite beautiful, as are the stunning projections (realized by Fifty-Nine Prods.) that provide a brooding backdrop for dramatic scenes of Valjean running for his life in the sewers of Paris, and Javier standing on a moonlit bridge and contemplating his fate.
It boasts music by Claude-Michel Schonberg, lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer and original French text by Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel. Producer Cameron Mackintosh was sold on reviving the show after learning that set designer Matt Kinley was inspired by the paintings of Hugo, which are often brooding, eerie and romantic. His images of Paris infuse the production — augmented by enough fog to host a heavy metal festival — and, together with golden beams of lighting by Paule Constable, leave the actors looking a bit like they’re in paintings themselves. Projections by Fifty-Nine Productions are subtle until brilliant, especially the plunge into the sewers in Act 2. There is no massive spinning turntable on the stage, as in previous incarnations, but it isn’t missed.
The innovative turntable set of the original production is gone, replaced by Matt Kinley’s simple but elegant sets and projections (by Fifty-Nine Productions) that seem to evoke the gritty street scenes of Hooper’s film as well as original paintings by Les Miz author Victor Hugo.
Directors
James Powell and Laurence Connor
Design
Matt Kinley
Produced By
Cameron Mackintosh Productions
Lighting
Paule Constable
Projection
59
Sound
Mick Potter
Choreography
Mike Ashcroft
Lead animator
Peter Stenhouse
Assistant animator
Sam Kerridge