Les Misérables is one of my favourite musicals of all times. I've seen it half a dozen times and was very excited to rewatch it on my latest #London trip - basically after over 20 years.

Now, I was quite disappointed. Not only because of the performance of Javert and Eponine. But more about the general staging.

The last time it was shown in the Palace Theatre on a big rotating stage and the new smaller theatre it is in now didn't really do any good to play. Maybe the stage was not the issue but the choreographic, which often felt disconnected from the actually lyrics that where sung. Javert looking to the crowd but somehow noticing Valjean pulled a knife in his back. "Empty chairs at empty tables" not being staged in the cafe. And then there where a lot of scenes where I thought "god, don't talk to ME, you are having a dialog with the character besides you". Or where the only thing a character does is folding hands to pray 3 times in 3 minutes during one song, putting down their cap down and up and down and up or just randomly ran to the back of the stage to run in front again. And then it felt rushed as fuck. The tempo was so high that it felt out of place. I compared the length of the complete symphonic recording with the time I was sitting in the theatre and they definitely pumped up the speed of the music. I also missed a scene at the beginning where Valjean rescued a man in jail by lifting a heavy wooden beam - which left a gap later when Javert talks about having seen only one man this strong during another accident.

The staging felt half-hearted and not thought through and even worse: it has lost it's epicness.

I think they didn't do a good job in shrinking the production down. Especially compared to the new production of #Phantom that I visited last year in Vienna. There, it was absolutely amazing to see how they changed it staging to the better. Everything made more sense. Everything felt more "realistic" and conclusive.

#lesmiserables #musical