Les Miserables Reviews

Betsy from Bloomington, Indiana

I WAS MISERABLE!

My daughter and I had first row balcony seats and were so excited for the show. The first scene was dark and the men had great voices but right away I felt a lack of connection to the characters. None of them were singing to me. The tempo felt rushed and the actors seemed to be going through the motions. It was hard to understand the lyrics sometimes. The solos lacked passion, at least for us. It is too long a show for me. We left at intermission. The sets were fantastic! Just disappointed.

Mary Droder from Cincinnati, Ohio

LES MIS

I was so very disappointed. The performers had NO passion. NONE. I was expecting to be pulled in and crying by the end, just as the movie had me. But these singers were just showing up and not feeling the part. Jean ValJean was terrible. Absolutely NO passion. How did Cosette have dark hair and was Asian as a young girl and then become a blonde as an adult? This had to be the worst performance out of all my seasons being at the Aronoff..

Oberon from Sarasota, Florida

WAS THIS THEIR FIRST DRESS REHEARSAL?

Let's put it this way, 1/3 of the way through the first act I wanted to leave. The entire 1st act seemed to be on 1.5 fast forward speed. Songs were all rushed. Valjean would be a good JC in JC superstar. He seems to have PTSD with jerking movements the entire first act and kept sliding on his notes. Fantine seemed to be breathless all the time. The Thenardier's WERE HORRIBLE. WHO CAST THEM?? could barley understand the husband, the wife kept ending her notes in growls. Enjorlas seemed like a starved Fabio who kept reaching for his notes. The stage was too dark and the music was not loud enough (and I'm 36). Eponine tried so hard to sing...but just failed miserably. The only scene she did good on was the "I'm gonna scream, I'm gonna warn them here" - but constantly out of harmony with Marius and Cosette. Javert was excellent Cosette was 8 out of 10 Marius - a baritone did actually well. Pulled at some note but enjoyable. There were some cast members who sang better than the leads.

Anita from Atlanta, Georgia

UNINTELLIGIBLE

Saw it at Peace Center SC 8 March. I have seen Les Mis 4 times, and this was probably the most disappointing. I actually really liked the singing/voices, particularly Valjean & Javert, but the lyrics were unintelligible for many characters. Having read the book and seen the production I could infer my own understanding, but my family did not fare as well, I spent a lot of intermission trying to catch them up on the story so far, but it did not help and they did not attend the second half. In my view the orchestra was too loud and at times drowned out the more softer singers, it was only Valjean and Javert that were singing louder than the orchestra. The second issue was diction, specifically I am going to call out Thendadier and most of the students. It is also true that the really dark lighting exacerbated the issue, making it really hard to follow, if you were not familiar with the story. It is baffling to me that having seen so many similar reviews that the production has not made any tweaks??

Greg Kaster from Milwaukee, Wisconsin

DISAPPOINTED

The Milwaukee production was the sixth time I have seen Les Miserables (my favorite musical). I was disappointed. Though the performers were all very talented, I did not feel the passion or experience any " uh wow" moments during this performance like I have with other Les Miz productions. It felt like the performers were just going through the motions performing their without extra passion especially on the popular 'high impact' songs (On My Own, Dream of Dream, Bring Him Home).. On a more positive note, I thought the performer who played Marius was excellent!

EJ from Detroit, Michigan

DUD

The lighting, sound and stage left much to be desired. Too dark, sound way to bright and scenes relied heavily on the movie in the background. I have seen this before at the Fisher years ago and was really impressed. This production paled in comparison.

Mihael Calo from Washington, District of Columbia

POOR PRERECORDED AUDIO, AND SECOND-RATE CAST ON APRIL 15, 2023 SHOW.

With the exception of the tenor who sang the role of Javert who was excellent and the little boy among the performers, the rest of the cast was mediocre; their voices lacked passion and "presence". If you don't believe this then listen to tenors like the late Luciano Pavarotti and others, to hear what good tenors sound like. It did not help that the audio system was poor or poorly set up: it sounded as if the engineers had chosen to attenuate both the treble and the bass, leaving only the middle frequencies; as a result, performers' voices sounded as if they were coming out of a cheap loud AM radio. I found myself longing for the likes of experts like Lea Salonga and true tenors.

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