Thirty-seven years on and umpteen tour stops later, the current “Les Misérables” at Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa is flat-out terrific.
If casting is key to a production’s success, the work done in assembling the 40-plus ensemble is exemplary. While you may not find a recognizable name in the program, you’ll depart wanting to see and, especially, hear members of this talented group again.
Positive attributes haven’t always been at the forefront over the decades in this show. Over time, the original Trevor Nunn version felt tired and unsure, evenings of stodginess, lacking focus.
But excellent orchestrations and brisk pacing in the pit — almost three hours of musical storytelling —never bogs down. Sure-handed eyes by directors Laurence Connor and James Powell, at the helm now for more than a decade, infuse energy and freshness in every scene.
As a result, the show is as vital and compelling again as it was in its earliest years when it became one of Broadway’s biggest smashes.
Beginning in 1982, with “Cats,” then “Les Miz” and finally with “Phantom of the Opera,” imported British musicals dominated Broadway box offices and continuously populated national theater stages in the U.S. for the rest of that century.
Of those three Brit invasions shows, “Les Misérables” endures as the most substantive creative effort.
A distillation of Victor Hugo’s 19th century novel, the musical’s plot showcases the strata of greater Parisian life. It is as micro as good guy versus bad — unapologetic spoiler: “nice guy steals a loaf of bread and a decade later a mean guy is still chasing after him, even into the sewers.”
There are plenty of love complications across generations and the show also expands into a bloody re-enactment of a fizzled social uprising that lasted only two days in 1832 and was so obscure hardly anybody outside France at the time had heard about it.
The key remains Claude-Michel Schönberg’s triumphant if florid score. Broadway’s first sung-through (no spoken dialogue minus music) mega-musical, the show has aptly been described as a pop opera.
Headed by stirring, confessional ballads like “I Dreamed a Dream” and “Who Am I?” and the archetypal anthemics of “One Day More” and “Do You Hear the People Sing?,” the sheer range and tonality of the 40+-song score is the show’s backbone.
This physical production will be familiar to local theater goers. It was seen on the Segerstrom stage in 2012 as part of the musical’s 25th anniversary tour.
The turntable on stage has long been replaced by image designs on a screen that occasionally create startling movement. The lighting continues to be dim, but the shadings are intentional, conveying the squalor, desperation and raw emotions of a distant age.
Other familiar moments remain: Actors march in place, important characters perish directly after their big solos and a giant red flag is defiantly waved above the barricades.
In fact, perhaps the most significant departure might be that after decades of mysterious diction, the cuter-than-cute Frenchie street urchin Gavroche (Milo Maharlika) no longer bafflingly speaks in the most cockney of English accents. Now he sounds just as American as everyone else in the cast.
As to that cast and the principals, the elevating takeaway of the evening is how strong and deep the onstage talent pool is.
Mirroring the structure of opera, the work has big set piece numbers for the ensembles with early on the racing “At the End of the Day” and later with the male chorus singing “Red and Black,” the swelling harmonies are delivered at a stellar level.
In classic Italian opera, tenors take on the good guy parts and baritones the baddies. With Nick Cartell’s moral centerpiece, Jean Valjean, and Steve Czarnecki’s inexorable Javert, the acting is on par with the singing.
Jean Valjean, of course, is the show’s compass, events tilting around his choices. It’s up to the actor to make his incredible journey seem credible and Cartell’s performance steers us well. As for the singing, his beautiful tenor clarity and its staggering staying power through his 11 o’clock number “Bring Him Home” is stunning.
If there is a quibble with Czarnecki’s (who, somewhat amazingly, is the company’s understudy for the role… how deep a bench does this show have?) Javert it might be that the actor humanizes the character so effectively that, well, you kind of find yourself rooting for him in spite of his insanely obsessive persecution of Jean Valjean.
Czarnecki’s ultimate come-to-terms-with-self moment solo, “Soliloquy (What Have I Done)” was reasonably well sung, but ultimately plausible because of the depth of the actor’s characterization.
The other prominent singing roles are filled with singers at this same level. The most frustrating thing is that two notable heroines die off like flies right after their warhorse numbers when all you want is for them to keep singing.
Ah, well, nothing to be done.
As the doomed, deserted “grisette,” Fantine has perhaps the biggest standalone hit, “I Dreamed a Dream.” With the role originated by Patti LuPone in 1985, we won’t get into vocal comparisons, but in 2023 it’s hard to fathom wanting to hear it by anyone except Haley Dortch. With her taking a break from attending the University of Michigan for her national tour debut, take this bet to Vegas: we will be hearing of Dortch for years to come.
Another female in peril is the love-sick Eponine, played with equal brio by Christine Heesun Hwang. With her bell-tone soprano, her act two curtain-raising solo number “On My Own” also makes you want to run out and buy a ticket for wherever she’ll be appearing next.
There are sonic riches deep in the cast, even in uncredited singing snippets. For instance, early in the show, take note of the richness and warmth in Randy Jeter’s voice as the Bishop of Digne when he counsels and redeems Jean Valjean.
Anyway, enough with the cheerleading: the advice is go, enjoy.
‘Les Misérables’
Rating: 4 stars.
When: Through Oct. 1: 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays and 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sundays
Where: Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa
Tickets: $39-$149
Information: 949-556-2787; scfta.org
