Les Miz Highlights

Performer: Cast Recording
Engineer: David Hunt
Producer: Alain Boublil; Claude-Michel Schönberg
Distributor: RED Distribution

Notes: Lyricist: Herbert Kretzmer. Adapters: John Caird; John Caird; Trevor Nunn. Personnel: Clive Carter, Ian Tucker, Dave Willetts, Sue Jane Tanner, Ian Calvin, David Burt, Craig Pinder, Colin Wilkinson, Frances Ruffelle, Roger Allam, Caroline Quentin, Si�n Reeves, Sally Mates, Paul Leonard, Jackie Marks, Jill Martin, Aline Mowat, Ken Caswell, Rebecca Caine, Keith Burns, Alun Armstrong, Gary Huddlestone, Zoe Hart, Patti LuPone, Peter Polycarpou (vocals). Liner Note Authors: Sheridan Morley; Sheridan Morley. Photographer: Michel LePoer-Trench. In the spring of 2009, a woman named Susan Boyle shocked the judges of a British television program called Britain's Got Talent by singing the song "I Dreamed a Dream" from the musical Les Mis�rables. The shock seems to have been that Boyle was a woman of homely appearance who had a great voice; apparently the people who judge talent on such shows labor under the delusion that only physically attractive people can sing well. In any case, in addition to making Boyle a worldwide musical phenomenon for at least 15 minutes, the incident also gave a little life to a musical that had been running continuously in London since 1985, and inspired First Night Records -- amazingly, for the first time -- belatedly to issue this single-CD "highlights" abridgement of the original London cast album, which has sold many millions of copies in its full-length two-disc version. That means the score has been cut down from 31 tracks to 19 with a running time of 70 minutes. Of course, the selection includes the best-known numbers, among them "I Dreamed a Dream," as ably performed by Patti LuPone in the role of Fantine. In fact, with much of the introductory material pared away, Fantine, who actually dies fairly early in the first act, seems like the primary character in the show in this truncated version, at least for the first half-dozen tracks. That should please the Susan Boyle fans, who also will find more power ballads like "I Dreamed a Dream," and, with much of the boring recitative that explains the endless plot eliminated, won't have to wait very long for them to appear. The relatively spare packaging for the disc trumpets some of the positive reviews for the London production and even mentions some of the negative ones, as if the show's ongoing success was proof of its quality. And yet, 24 years later, the dated synthesizer arrangements sound thin; the music remains derivative; the lyrics are still pedestrian; and the performers are still hammy. (In their defense, it must be admitted that there is no effective way to sing a power ballad subtly.) If, decades after its premiere, Les Mis�rables has become fodder for TV amateur shows, it finally may have found its level. ~ William Ruhlmann

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