A story of our journey

One of our worth mentioning experiences in London is going to watch "Les Miserables" in person. We went to the Queen's Theatre in London on May 25 and got front row seats at the price of 35% off. The theatre was full that night.

Everyone who uses Internet is probably aware of Susan Boyle and her performance on BGT at ITV. Before coming to London, we watched her YouTube performance many times (well, okay.. only I did..) and became eager to see the musical played by professionals. This is probably the same reason why many tourists joined us that night since, when the scene Fantine (by Allyson Brown) started singing "I Dreamed a Dream", I can hear the noises from the excited audience.

Honestly, Brown's version is somehow dissapointing. Perhaps it is due to our very high expectation for her performance, and her voice turned out to be very low. Kaiwen and I both agreed that Cassandra Compton (played Eponine) should be Fantine; her voice and appearance both make her perfect for the poor character Fantine, as Victor Hugo intended in his novel.

After returning from London, we became curious about different versions of Les Miserables. Then I found the 1995 Les Miserables concert held at the Royal Albert Hall to be unbeatable over all other versions. Ruthie Hanshall's Fantine is truly unbelievable!! Her voice seems to be able to stay in my mind after she finishes the scene. After lisitening to and watching her performance (we found both mp3 and video), Boyle's version is indeed amateur. But can't blame Boyle since she is not professionally-trained. We just regret for not being lucky enough to see Hanshall's performance in London (well.. we can watch her performance as many times as we want now since we have the video, so it's not too bad).

The success of Les Miserables roots in its touching story, and the musical certainly also captures the essence of the story. I only watched the movie version of Les Miserables (1998, by Liam Neeson, Geoffrey Rush, and Uma Thurman) before we went to London. The movie is different
from the novel in the later part of the story, but Rush's Javert is the best I have ever seen.

The image attached was by Emile Bayard in 1862, which is the basis for all Les Miserables musical posters.