To Paris with love! Why the world keeps falling for 'Les Miserables'

To Paris with love! Why the world keeps falling for 'Les Miserables'

AP

Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean and Anne Hathaway as Fantine in the new film version of the musical 'Les Miserables'

A neighbor caught my ear as he locked his bike to a lamppost on our block two weeks ago.

He was humming while he was at it, and I recognized a melody from “Les Miserables” immediately. I silently filled in the lyrics.

“I dreamed a dream in times gone by, when hope was high and life worth living.”

I was amused â€" and nosy. I asked, “Did you see a screening of the new movie?”

“No, just a trailer,” he said. “The song is stuck in my head.”

Having just watched the film, I could relate. “Miserables” loves company, as they say. That catchy anthem was cemented in my cerebrum too. It’s that kind of song. It’s that kind of musical.

The much-ballyhooed big-screen adaptation starring Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe and Anne Hathaway, opening Christmas Day, has pushed the musical to top of mind again.

No surprise.

“Les Miz” has always caused a commotion, riveted attention and inspired rapture â€" if not from critics, then from other audience members.

Do the math: The show has been seen on stage by 60 million people in 42 countries. There’s a term for such “Miz”-tique: global sensation.

Based on Victor Hugo’s sprawling 1862 novel, the story set in France covers 1815 to 1832 and the Paris revolts. It follows various characters: Jean Valjean, a convict on the lam; Javert, an inspector doggedly on his trail; Fantine, an unwed mother forced into prostitution to support her daughter Cosette; plus various revolutionary students, icky innkeepers and their children.

The show began as a French pop album by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg. In 1980, it found its way onto the stage of a Paris sports stadium.

In 1985 in London, a revised version, with English lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer and more changes by various collaborators, was presented by the canny producer Cameron Mackintosh and the Royal Shakespeare Company. It become a huge success.

In 1987, preceded by gale-force buzz, the show crossed the Atlantic to New York. Staged and adapted by the “Cats” team of Trevor Nunn and John Caird, the musical opened at the Imperial Theatre on March 12, 1987. “Les Miz” stormed Broadway with the sort of confidence that a then-record $ 12 million advance affords.

Reviews were mixed, but most found something special to applaud. The Daily News noted that the show â€" it was sung-through, like the earlier shows “Tommy,” “Jesus Christ Superstar” and “Evita” â€" offered “a kind of spectacle American theatergoers have not seen in a long time.”

The Associated Press called it a “pop opera of epic proportions,” adding that it boasted “a shrewd mixture of modern technology and old-fashioned emotion [that] celebrates the classic Victor Hugo novel in such a way that audiences apparently can’t resist.”

Seriously. It instantly become a hot ticket. There was at least a three-month wait for orchestra seats early on. The show, which won eight Tony Awards, including best musical, book and score, ultimately ran for 16 years.

It closed at the Broadway Theatre on May 18, 2003. That number makes it the fourth-longest-running Broadway show. (Outlasting it: “Chicago,” which just surpassed it on Thursday, “Cats” and, most enduring, “The Phantom of the Opera.”)