Les Mis stuff
Wed, May. 5th, 2004 08:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterFound Les Mis at work and borrowed it to listen to (somehow, very long musicals are less annoying to listen to over an eight hour workday than lots and lots of CDs on iPod). I used to absolutely adore it to pieces (still like it, just... not that fanatically), but I haven't heard it in a good few years or so, since my Les Mis CD started skipping.
Ah, so many things are the same -- Cosette still annoys me. I still can't help but roll my eyes at the love at first sight bit and the entire trilling through "A Heart Full of Love." Apparently, I was a cynic about romance pretty early on. Romeo and Juliet annoyed me for the same reason. I think I tried to make everything make sense then, so I completely did not understand how someone could just set eyes on another person and know it's love. For that matter, I still don't think it happens really. Plus, I felt sorry for Eponine (unrequited love, ah, high school. Hee). I think everyone does though, but back then I thought I was being rebellious or something, not liking the heroine ;). It's just, Cosette has no agency at all. She sits there with the Thenardiers and is abused and in general engenders pity in the audience, and then she's rescued by Valjean and raised as a completely sheltered princess. I'm supposed to feel sorry for her because she had a rotten childhood, and I do, but it doesn't make her a very interesting character. Valjean protects her by telling her nothing, as does Marius later, because she's the princess in the ivory tower (mixing metaphors...) who can't be sullied by the real world or something. And I think it makes psychological sense on Valjean's part, but again, it doesn't make her a very interesting character to watch.
Marius also gets points off for doing that love at first sight thing. Plus, I have inherent dislike for the "meant to be" couple in a love triangle. And I remember teenaged me rolling my eyes over his bits in "Red and Black" -- who needs love when there's an exciting, idealistic revolution going on! Now that I think about it, I think I was a great fan of exciting, idealistic revolutions as a kid.
I'm actually not that interested in Valjean either, but I very much like Javert (especially Terrance Mann's voice). I think part of that is the fascination with idealism and justice. I was very adamant (and still am) that things be Fair and Just and with questions of ends justifying means (for a while I was for it) and being annoyed at the emotional heroes who are always willing to let the world go to hell because an innocent is suffering. Not that I am actually all for killing the innocent, obviously, but one sees so many heroic stands like that in fiction, that people who are starkly idealistic to the point in which the end does justify the means are very interesting in contrast. We can now see where my fascination with Wesley stems from. I just thought today that Javert is the opposite of Enjolras -- they've both got this very hard set ideology and aren't very willing to let anything get in the way of it. Ruthlessly idealistic people are interesting. So are ruthlessly grey people like the Thenardiers and Eponine (who now sort of reminds me of Spike).
I think in fiction the heroes are too often singled out so that even when they make the tough decisions, you know they will somehow resolve it, like Buffy in the Gift. ME gets many more kudos though for portraying the psychological damage of having to make those decisions. Sometimes the good people in fiction seem to preternaturally know they are Good and that everything will be ok, and that makes them less interesting. It's like Harrison Ford in Air Force One not taking the escape capsule because he thinks he can single-handedly defeat the terrorists. Admirable love for his family, but extremely impractical, imho. I also used to be (and still am to a lesser degree) absolutely fascinated with the conflicts between being a leader/king/queen of people and being a person (much like Buffy's Slayer/California girl complex) and because all the narratives I watched or read had heroes that would privilege the personal above the ideal (loooots of action movies here, thanks to my dad), I always fell firmly on the side of responsibility to the greater good instead of the personal. I think this is why I got to like Faris so much in A College of Magics.
Also listened to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (stop laughing at me! I went through this huge Andrew Lloyd Weber phase in middle school) for the first time in forever. Like Les Mis, many things haven't changed... still fascinated with fan renderings of the Bible or addendums to the "canonical" stories I know (which is why the Gnostic Gospels and Kabbalism interests me). I still think Joseph was rather spoiled and it wasn't very nice of him to rub his brothers' noses in it. And I still feel sort of sorry for his brothers, who often feel like they are programmed to be mean and jealous.
I also used to be able to sing all the colors from memory in the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (It was red and yellow and blah and blah), but sadly, I have lost that ability.
Ah, so many things are the same -- Cosette still annoys me. I still can't help but roll my eyes at the love at first sight bit and the entire trilling through "A Heart Full of Love." Apparently, I was a cynic about romance pretty early on. Romeo and Juliet annoyed me for the same reason. I think I tried to make everything make sense then, so I completely did not understand how someone could just set eyes on another person and know it's love. For that matter, I still don't think it happens really. Plus, I felt sorry for Eponine (unrequited love, ah, high school. Hee). I think everyone does though, but back then I thought I was being rebellious or something, not liking the heroine ;). It's just, Cosette has no agency at all. She sits there with the Thenardiers and is abused and in general engenders pity in the audience, and then she's rescued by Valjean and raised as a completely sheltered princess. I'm supposed to feel sorry for her because she had a rotten childhood, and I do, but it doesn't make her a very interesting character. Valjean protects her by telling her nothing, as does Marius later, because she's the princess in the ivory tower (mixing metaphors...) who can't be sullied by the real world or something. And I think it makes psychological sense on Valjean's part, but again, it doesn't make her a very interesting character to watch.
Marius also gets points off for doing that love at first sight thing. Plus, I have inherent dislike for the "meant to be" couple in a love triangle. And I remember teenaged me rolling my eyes over his bits in "Red and Black" -- who needs love when there's an exciting, idealistic revolution going on! Now that I think about it, I think I was a great fan of exciting, idealistic revolutions as a kid.
I'm actually not that interested in Valjean either, but I very much like Javert (especially Terrance Mann's voice). I think part of that is the fascination with idealism and justice. I was very adamant (and still am) that things be Fair and Just and with questions of ends justifying means (for a while I was for it) and being annoyed at the emotional heroes who are always willing to let the world go to hell because an innocent is suffering. Not that I am actually all for killing the innocent, obviously, but one sees so many heroic stands like that in fiction, that people who are starkly idealistic to the point in which the end does justify the means are very interesting in contrast. We can now see where my fascination with Wesley stems from. I just thought today that Javert is the opposite of Enjolras -- they've both got this very hard set ideology and aren't very willing to let anything get in the way of it. Ruthlessly idealistic people are interesting. So are ruthlessly grey people like the Thenardiers and Eponine (who now sort of reminds me of Spike).
I think in fiction the heroes are too often singled out so that even when they make the tough decisions, you know they will somehow resolve it, like Buffy in the Gift. ME gets many more kudos though for portraying the psychological damage of having to make those decisions. Sometimes the good people in fiction seem to preternaturally know they are Good and that everything will be ok, and that makes them less interesting. It's like Harrison Ford in Air Force One not taking the escape capsule because he thinks he can single-handedly defeat the terrorists. Admirable love for his family, but extremely impractical, imho. I also used to be (and still am to a lesser degree) absolutely fascinated with the conflicts between being a leader/king/queen of people and being a person (much like Buffy's Slayer/California girl complex) and because all the narratives I watched or read had heroes that would privilege the personal above the ideal (loooots of action movies here, thanks to my dad), I always fell firmly on the side of responsibility to the greater good instead of the personal. I think this is why I got to like Faris so much in A College of Magics.
Also listened to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (stop laughing at me! I went through this huge Andrew Lloyd Weber phase in middle school) for the first time in forever. Like Les Mis, many things haven't changed... still fascinated with fan renderings of the Bible or addendums to the "canonical" stories I know (which is why the Gnostic Gospels and Kabbalism interests me). I still think Joseph was rather spoiled and it wasn't very nice of him to rub his brothers' noses in it. And I still feel sort of sorry for his brothers, who often feel like they are programmed to be mean and jealous.
I also used to be able to sing all the colors from memory in the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (It was red and yellow and blah and blah), but sadly, I have lost that ability.
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Fri, May. 7th, 2004 12:27 am (UTC)Kaho Shimada is the Eponine from the CSR. She did not know English and they had to teach the song to her phonetically - someone stood in front of her and mouthed words to her. Still, I think she comes away with one of the better Eponine performances I've heard along with Linzi Hateley. Unfortunately, LH is not on any of the official cast recordings.
ITA about Cosette. She's a very standard love interest and her songs don't "read" to me as complex or personal as Eponine's does. "A Little Fall of Rain" never ceases to make me tear up. I also appreciate it because (even though he never really manages to get out of the ME! syndrome in the book), Marius seems to understand in the song and, if sung well, sounds genuinely sad.
Lessee...I have the OLC, OBC, CSR, both Japanese casts, the Madrid cast, the Manchester highlights, and (IIRC) the German cast and maybe one or two others. *blushes*
LOL! re: the Chris/Vaughn thing. I think Miss Saigon has a great first act, but the second act just...it's like all the air letting out of a balloon. There are some very smart moments in that act - the Engineer's song "The American Dream", the use of the "Sun and Moon" theme when Kim is going to the hotel without a clue as to what's waiting for her and the song "I'd Give My Life For You" is a decent bit of foreshadowing the lengths Kim will go to. Other than that...eh. One thing I did appreciate about having the CSR was getting to hear the "The Confrontation" in its entirety. Not that I like Chris any *better*, mind you, but I always felt I was missing something that Boublil and Schoenberg thought explained him with how they edited on the OLC.
I, er, also have several different casts of Miss Saigon. *And* I have the Forbidden Broadway songs for both musicals.
Yes. I am a geek. Phear me *g*.
(no subject)
Fri, May. 7th, 2004 10:54 pm (UTC)Why do I keep thinking Lea Salonga played Eponine sometime? Hrm. Maybe it was in some concert presentation at the Royal Albert Hall? Or was that Shimada as well?
Chris is so Vaughn!! Leaves girlfriend behind after professing love forever, gets married, etc. My problem is that the entire time, all my sympathies go to Ellen (you can see now how I was pretty much programmed to like Lauren from the start, heh).
(no subject)
Mon, May. 10th, 2004 03:38 am (UTC)Kaho Shimada is Eponine on the CSR. Lea Salonga played Eponine for the ten year anniversary.
Ellen...I don't know. Every time I see her, I think of a comment Mackintosh and Co made about her big song (which ultimately went through a bit of revision). They kept saying it was too Tammy Wynette as in "Stand By Your Man". *G*
Unfortunately, the whole second act of Miss Saigon just falls apart. I don't see why Chris even brings Ellen (putting aside why he married her within three years of coming home - dude, that's just a little quick!). I don't get Ellen's whole "he's mine!" act. Honey, your husband has managed to keep a very big part of his life from you. Think you two might wanna talk before you pledge your undying loyalty?
Their comments during the whole of their song after Kim runs out of the hotel (The Confrontation?) are very..."We're white. We know what would be better for this little Asian girl and her child." and that drives me up the wall. First, I don't think Chris or Ellen ever really see the child as *Chris's child*. It' an abstract to them. What they see and concentrate on is Kim - Ellen sees competition and Chris acts like he doesn't even understand the implications of Kim and Tam or that he has any responsibility whatsoever. He makes me think he looks at Kim the way Scrooge regarded Jacob Marley - a bad dream caused by indigestion.
(So my sympathies lay a bit more on Kim's side because of the way she is treated by both Chris and Ellen *g*)
There are at least some decent actors playing Chris on the other soundtracks (Simon Bowman always sounds like he's singing with a vibrator up his ass). IIRC, the Chris from the Dutch cast manages to convey emotion and being torn much more convincingly than Bowman (and he's not even singing in English!)
(no subject)
Mon, May. 10th, 2004 11:37 pm (UTC)Ha, I actually have no insights into Ellen's character at all -- I just take her side automatically because I would be so. pissed. off. if that happened to me (so much so that I would have to use inappropriate placement of periods!) ;). Plus, Kim and Chris both pissed me off in the beginning because of the love at first sight thing. Wow, I am so completely irrational about some buttons.
Hee hee, now I'm putting the Les Mis anniversary concert on my Netflix queue. Haven't seen it for a while.