But outside of France, his novels "Notre-Dame de Paris" (1831) and "Les Misérables" (1862) were far better known and popularly acclaimed. The musical in turn owes its success to Victor Hugo’s 150-year-old epic of poverty and its consequences. "Les Misérables" has not ceased to stir emotions all along that formidable span of time, most recently in Tom Hooper’s monumental new film adaptation - one of more than 20 cinematic renderings of "Les Misérables" to date.īorn in 1802, Victor Marie Hugo first won acclaim as a poet the volumes "Les Contemplations" and "La Legende des Siécles" being particular critical favorites. Her unselfishness and amazing turn in fortune (she is now a recording artist with three best-selling albums) fit the novel that preceded the musical.įor Fantine, though, things didn’t work out quite so well, as any fan of the musical - with music, lyrics, and libretto by Claude-Michel Schoenberg, Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel, and Herbert Kretzmer, respectively - can tell you.
Fantine’s “What a Life I Could Have Known,” and lyrics like it were obviously applicable to Boyle, a middle-aged woman with learning disabilities who, for most of her life, took care of an ailing mother. Her final song is a remembrance of her youth, when her dreams for a beautiful life seemed achievable. In the show, “I Dreamed A Dream” belongs to Fantine, a fired factory seamstress forced into prostitution as a last resort. With a single song, Susan Boyle, a 47 year-old Scottish nobody, became an internationally famous somebody, prompting humorist Andy Borowitz to pen the headline “Talented, Ugly Person Baffles World.” But anyone who knows the musical version of "Les Misérables," from which Boyle took her song, knows her overnight success was more a product of the right singer picking the right song at the right time. I’M SURE WE ALL RECALL this stirring “reality television” moment from a 2009 episode of "Britain’s Got Talent." This article originally appeared on the L.A.
0 kommentar(er)
