Cosette sweeping Thénardier's Inn, by Émile Bayard
Summary: "Les Misérables" began as a French “concept album” in 1980, written by Alain Boublil (lyrics) and Claude-Michel Schoenberg (music) and performed by French pop stars. The songs were based on Victor Hugo's 1862 novel of the same name. The full list of "concept album" songs, both in French and English translation, can be found here. Recordings of all the songs on the concept album are here. Following the "soft" introduction of the concept album, which sold 260,000 copies, director Robert Hossein conducted a full stage production in Paris at the Palais des Sports in September that same year. It played 107 performances and drew 500,000 spectators over 3 months. A recording of that production (audio only) is here. There does not appear to be a surviving video recording.
After Cameron Mackintosh acquired stage-musical production rights in 1983 through his company Music Theater International (MTI), its adaptation into English for a London launch in 1985 helped it become the longest-running musical in history. Following its London debut in 1985, Lés Misérables ran in New York City at the Broadway Theatre from 1987-2003. There were numerous subsequent revivals and new productions. In 1990-91, the London version of the show was translated back into French for runs in Montreal and in Paris where it performed at the Théatre Mogador for 8 months. In 2010, the 25th anniversary of the London show, a new international touring production went on the road. In 2012, a film version of the musical directed by Tom Hooper with a star-studded cast (Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, Russell Crowe, and Eddie Redmayne) received nominations for 8 Oscars, winning three. Les Misérables has logged over 130 million viewers in 53 countries and numerous productions in 22 foreign languages. On October 8, 2025 it celebrated its 40th anniversary.
“Les Misérables” resembles a 40-50 course “prix fixe” menu at a 3-star Michelin restaurant. It is a “sung-through” musical and too grand in scope to consider each piece in detail on this website. We explore below the overall production and several iconic songs that appeared in the French-language 1980 premiere in Paris and the 1985 English-language adaptation in London. The focus is on comparing the French and English versions.
Origins: Like many of the artists on this website, Alain Boublil (lyricist) and Claude-Michel Schoenberg (composer/singer) emerged from deeply cosmopolitan roots. Boublil (b. 1941) was born in Tunisia, a French protectorate until 1956, in a family with Sephardic Jewish heritage. When he was 18, he "went up" to Paris for university studies. Schoenberg’s parents were Hungarian Jews who moved from Budapest to the town of Vannes in Brittany where Claude-Michel was born in 1944. His father was a piano tuner and both parents shared a love for music. Both Claude-Michel and Alain went to Paris as students and later as apprentices working in the music industry.
Boublil & Schoenberg
Boublil and Schoenberg met by coincidence in 1968 and became close collaborators. Their joint interest in musical theater began in 1971 when Boublil saw a production of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s "Jesus Christ Superstar" in New York. That led to a collaboration in 1973 on the first French rock opera, “La Révolution Française,” with Schoenberg playing the role of King Louis XVI. Having addressed the “great revolution” of 1789, they turned next to the 1832 “June Rebellion” or “Paris Uprising” against the newly-established monarchy of Louis Philippe that Victor Hugo enshrined in his novel “Les Misérables.”
Victor Hugo by Auguste Rodin 1885
Where did the project for "Les Misérables" come from? In 1978, Boublil attended Cameron Mackintosh’s revival of Lionel Bart’s Oliver! in London that was based on Dickens’ “Oliver Twist.” The Jack Dawkins character (Artful Dodger) in that show reminded Boublil of Gavroche in Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel “Les Misérables.” From there, Boublil and Schoenberg spent two years developing a “concept album” (an album with a theme or story). Schönberg wrote the music and Boublil the lyrics with assistance from Jean-Marc Natel. They completed a two-hour demonstration tape with Schoenberg singing the roles and accompanying himself on piano. The album was recorded and released in 1980, selling 260,000 copies. It was a heroic venture since Victor Hugo’s epic historical novel ranges from 1200-1500 pages, depending on the edition. The concept album featured several songs that remain familiar today, while others were later changed thematically and given to other characters, some were fleshed out, and others were dropped entirely.
As recounted above, a stage production of the "concept album" by director Robert Hossein premiered at the Paris Palais des Sports in September 1980. It had 3 acts and an epilogue and ran for 100+ performances over 3 months. It was seen by half a million people and closed after 3 months because the Palais des Sports had prior commitments. This was a good turnout, but its abbreviated life reflected musical theater's (la comédie musicale) relative shallowness in French culture of traditions and infrastructure.
The pathway from Paris in 1980 to London in 1985 was paved with a serendipitous set of circumstances. A friend of Boublil from Manchester, director Peter Farago, gave the concept album to British impresario Cameron Mackintosh (“Cats,” “Phantom of the Opera,” “Miss Saigon”). Even British weather contributed to the advent of “Les Misérables.” One rainy Sunday afternoon, while Mackintosh organized his music records at home, he listened to the French album that Farago gave him. He said later that the experience matched the first time he heard "West Side Story." His company MTI acquired stage musical production rights in 1983. Mackintosh decided on "Les Misérables" as his next project and conscripted British librettist and poet James Fenton to compose English lyrics.
Herbert Kretzmer
However, Fenton was entangled in a trip to Borneo searching for headhunters with his friend Redmond O’Hanlon so things went slowly with work on the lyrics. Fortuitously, Mackintosh remembered meeting in May 1984 with Herbert Kretzmer and learning about Kretzmer’s experience working with Charles Aznavour on lyrics for the songs “Hier encore” and “She” which happened to be two of his favorites!
Herbert Kretzmer (1925-20) was born in South Africa of emigré Lithuanian Jewish parents. He moved to London in 1954 and worked as a journalist and a part-time lyricist. He had a way with words. Mackintosh passed much of Fenton’s job to Kretzmer. More a lyricist than a translator, Kretzmer estimated that his task with "Les Misérables" amounted to one-third translation, one-third new songs, and one-third adaptation (writing new songs for the music). Kretzmer barely spoke French but worked with an English translation of the French lyrics and read the entire Victor Hugo novel several times. His main objective was not translation but creative adaptation of the songs into English consistent with their melodies and meanings. In his own words:
"I offer this advice to any lyricist invited to adapt or translate foreign songs into
English. Do not follow the original text slavishly. Re-invent the lyric in your own
words, remembering that there may be better ways of serving a master than
trotting behind him on a leash. Working on Les Misérables I did not see myself as
a translator, but as a co-writer… an equal among equals."
Kretzmer also expressed an intense dislike for the popular diminutive reference to "Les Mis," which he thought devalued the enormous accomplishment that Victor Hugo had accomplished in his weighty tome.
Herbert Kretzmer (1925-20) was born in South Africa of emigré Lithuanian Jewish parents. He moved to London in 1954 and worked as a journalist and a part-time lyricist. He had a way with words. Mackintosh passed much of Fenton’s job to Kretzmer. More a lyricist than a translator, Kretzmer estimated that his task with "Les Misérables" amounted to one-third translation, one-third new songs, and one-third adaptation (writing new songs for the music). Kretzmer barely spoke French but worked with an English translation of the French lyrics and read the entire Victor Hugo novel several times. His main objective was not translation but creative adaptation of the songs into English consistent with their melodies and meanings. In his own words:
"I offer this advice to any lyricist invited to adapt or translate foreign songs into
English. Do not follow the original text slavishly. Re-invent the lyric in your own
words, remembering that there may be better ways of serving a master than
trotting behind him on a leash. Working on Les Misérables I did not see myself as
a translator, but as a co-writer… an equal among equals."
Kretzmer also expressed an intense dislike for the popular diminutive reference to "Les Mis," which he thought devalued the enormous accomplishment that Victor Hugo had accomplished in his weighty tome.
Development: The production's move from Paris to London in 1985 brought changes to the overall narrative of the play, its composite songs and the relative importance of roles. Much of this work fell to co-directors Trevor Nunn and John Caird and the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) which played it at the Barbican before its transfer to the West End Palace Theater.
Since most educated Parisians were familiar with Victor Hugo’s overall story, Alain Boublil originally wrote the songs for the concept album as simple vignettes with little explicit narrative connective tissue between them and with a dominant focus on the love relationship between Marius and Cosette. The Paris concept album commenced the narrative late in Hugo's story with Fantine already toiling in the black glass factory that Monsieur Madeleine (aka Jean Valjean) had reinvigorated in the town of Montreuil-sur-Mer. The London production therefore had to fill in background about the characters and context with a prologue recounting Valjean's travail many years before as a convict working in Toulon's notorious bagne "hulks" (floating prisons).
Mackintosh's production also shifted the show’s focus to the dominant motif of Jean Valjean's redemption story. In this telling, the story conveyed a religious and moral tenor from Hugo's story that was absent from the French concept album with its sparse editorializing. Both James Fenton and John Caird played major roles in this reformulation. Caird's father was an Oxford theologian and Fenton's father was a priest and biblical scholar. It also reflected the significantly different roles of religion in French and British history and culture.
Themes of the interplay between grace, forgiveness and redemption, and between love and self-sacrifice received vivid depiction in the London adaptation. References to God, Jesus and heaven proliferated. Man's relationship to God became a leitmotif with the principal characters exemplifying contrasting manifestations of this relationship. Javert personified the Old Testament vengeful God, the immutability of law and the role of retribution and punishment in a proper system of justice. This contrasted with Valjean's personal incarnation of redemption through grace and charity. The Thénardiers completed the spectrum with their abject negligence of morality, charity, kindness or religion. Ultimately, Fantine and Éponine and Valjean share a happy death because, via the cauldron of self-sacrifice motivated by love, they "see the face of God."
"Les Misérables" has spawned among its fans a cottage industry of commentary regarding the assignment of songs to roles and the pairing of specific songs with melodic reprises. A distinctive characteristic of “Les Misérables” is the intertwined threads of melodies that appear as themes throughout the show. They provide linkages between narrative incidents and help establish the identity of characters. Melody detectives have peered endlessly over the scripts to identify the specific melodic themes that connect particular songs.
The titles of songs and their assignment to roles were also adjusted. For example, "L'air de la misère" in the French version became "On my own" in English and it was re-assigned from Fantine to Éponine. There was also the puzzling absence of a distinctive solo for Cosette whose face nevertheless became the visual emblem of the entire show. The principal character Jean Valjean also lacked a signature solo that eventually emerged in "Bring Him Home." By the time the team was done, several French songs in the original version were gone and replaced by half a dozen original songs that Kretzmer wrote with Boublil and Schoenberg. He “adapted” the remaining French songs into entirely new English versions. As a result, the length of performances increased from 2 to 3+ hours, which drew Cameron Mackintosh to distraction.
Since most educated Parisians were familiar with Victor Hugo’s overall story, Alain Boublil originally wrote the songs for the concept album as simple vignettes with little explicit narrative connective tissue between them and with a dominant focus on the love relationship between Marius and Cosette. The Paris concept album commenced the narrative late in Hugo's story with Fantine already toiling in the black glass factory that Monsieur Madeleine (aka Jean Valjean) had reinvigorated in the town of Montreuil-sur-Mer. The London production therefore had to fill in background about the characters and context with a prologue recounting Valjean's travail many years before as a convict working in Toulon's notorious bagne "hulks" (floating prisons).
Mackintosh's production also shifted the show’s focus to the dominant motif of Jean Valjean's redemption story. In this telling, the story conveyed a religious and moral tenor from Hugo's story that was absent from the French concept album with its sparse editorializing. Both James Fenton and John Caird played major roles in this reformulation. Caird's father was an Oxford theologian and Fenton's father was a priest and biblical scholar. It also reflected the significantly different roles of religion in French and British history and culture.
Themes of the interplay between grace, forgiveness and redemption, and between love and self-sacrifice received vivid depiction in the London adaptation. References to God, Jesus and heaven proliferated. Man's relationship to God became a leitmotif with the principal characters exemplifying contrasting manifestations of this relationship. Javert personified the Old Testament vengeful God, the immutability of law and the role of retribution and punishment in a proper system of justice. This contrasted with Valjean's personal incarnation of redemption through grace and charity. The Thénardiers completed the spectrum with their abject negligence of morality, charity, kindness or religion. Ultimately, Fantine and Éponine and Valjean share a happy death because, via the cauldron of self-sacrifice motivated by love, they "see the face of God."
"Les Misérables" has spawned among its fans a cottage industry of commentary regarding the assignment of songs to roles and the pairing of specific songs with melodic reprises. A distinctive characteristic of “Les Misérables” is the intertwined threads of melodies that appear as themes throughout the show. They provide linkages between narrative incidents and help establish the identity of characters. Melody detectives have peered endlessly over the scripts to identify the specific melodic themes that connect particular songs.
The titles of songs and their assignment to roles were also adjusted. For example, "L'air de la misère" in the French version became "On my own" in English and it was re-assigned from Fantine to Éponine. There was also the puzzling absence of a distinctive solo for Cosette whose face nevertheless became the visual emblem of the entire show. The principal character Jean Valjean also lacked a signature solo that eventually emerged in "Bring Him Home." By the time the team was done, several French songs in the original version were gone and replaced by half a dozen original songs that Kretzmer wrote with Boublil and Schoenberg. He “adapted” the remaining French songs into entirely new English versions. As a result, the length of performances increased from 2 to 3+ hours, which drew Cameron Mackintosh to distraction.
Early reaction of critics to the first performances of “Les Misérables” in October 1985 at the Barbican Theater in London was neutral-to-negative while the popular reaction was ecstatic. Jack Tinker of the Daily Mail pronounced that he had just been through “The Glums.” So much for the critics. It did not take long for them to “hear the people sing.”
Segue: Many people express surprise at the fact that although Les Misérables is entirely French in origin it never became a significant hit in its home country. In fact, many people are shocked to learn that it is not actually of English origin. Victor Hugo published the novel in 1862. French musical authors Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg produced the “concept album” in 1980 and that same year Robert Hossein directed the first 3-month on-stage production in Paris at the Palais des Sports. However, that was the last French appearance of the play until an 8-month run in 1991 at the Théâtre Mogador in Paris. For this production, Alain Boublil translated the established English lyrics back into French.
There have been many efforts to explain this lukewarm reception in its home market. An easy explanation that is nevertheless seldom mentioned is that Boublil and Schönberg fell under the influence of Anglo-American musicals and made a valiant but premature effort to replicate them in France. They were pioneers and in fact both of them actually believed it would be a flop. There are many other considerations and all or several of them played a role. Hugo’s book is a French classic that is embedded in the national psyche and educational system. Setting it to (pop) music may have seemed to trivialize an icon that was replete with French history and philosophy. Some may have seen the entire story as déja vu. At the time, the French cultural establishment generally lacked a deeply rooted tradition and infrastructure in musical theater. While France has some history of musicals, it is spotty and none of them has experienced the multi-year runs common in New York’s Broadway and London’s West End. The casting of the early French productions lacked compelling “star power” and they were, admittedly, early efforts. The stunningly rapid English-language appropriation of the phenomenon after 1985 may have alienated some people both by resentment at its expropriated ownership and the Anglo-American spin in content and culture that the adaptation entailed.
Les Misérables, Paris Olympic Games, 2024
The year 2024 saw a remarkable turn of events with France reclaiming its cultural heritage in more ways than one. Notre Dame Cathedral officially re-opened in December after a 5-year hiatus following the disastrous fire. The Summer Olympic Games resembled a musical show, and “Les Misérables” itself returned to Paris between November 20, 2024 and January 2, 2025 at the Théâtre du Châtelet. This revival under the direction of Ladislas Chollat and producer Stéphane Letellier sported a Boublil-revised French language libretto, a French cast and French direction. It had an enthusiastic public reception and won the 2025 Molière prize (equivalent to Tonys) for best musical show, with plans to tour the country in Spring 2026 and a (hopefully triumphant) return to Paris in November that same year.
Adaptations
This website post augments our more extensive segment on the site that explores the “adaptation” of French songs into English. Some songs from Paris 1980 did not survive the “cut” to London 1985. Other songs were written new in English for 1985 and did not have a French version from Paris 1980 (e.g. "Stars," "Bring Him Home," "Empty Chairs, Empty Tables," "Turning"). Still other songs survived only in partial form. Even more complicating, some songs had name changes from one production to another, especially for the 1991 Paris Revival. And some songs were re-formulated and assigned to different players. Among the songs from Paris 1980 that fully survived the “cut” to London 1985 and, with some name changes, the 1991 revival in Paris, were the following:
At the End of the Day 1985, Chorus, (“La journée est finie” 1980), (“Quand un jour est passé” 1991)
I Dreamed a Dream 1985, Fantine (“J’avais rêvé d’une autre vie” 1980 & 1991)
Little People 1985, Gavroche, (“la faute à Voltaire” 1980), (“c’est la faute à…” 1991
Do You Hear the People Sing 1985, Chorus, (“à la volonté du people” 1980, 1991)
One Day More 1985, Jean Valjean, (“Demain” 1980), (“Le grand jour” 1991)
On My Own* 1985, (“l’air de misère” 1980 Fantine), (“Mon histoire” 1991)
A Little Drop of Rain 1985, Èponine, (“ce n’est rien” 1980), (“un peu de sang qui pleure”1991)
*This song consists of a melody (“l’air de misère”) sung by Fantine in 1980 with different lyrics describing her miserable life. “On my own” lyrics were written by Herbert Kretzmer for Éponine in 1985 and paired with the same melody.
I Dreamed a Dream 1985, Fantine (“J’avais rêvé d’une autre vie” 1980 & 1991)
Little People 1985, Gavroche, (“la faute à Voltaire” 1980), (“c’est la faute à…” 1991
Do You Hear the People Sing 1985, Chorus, (“à la volonté du people” 1980, 1991)
One Day More 1985, Jean Valjean, (“Demain” 1980), (“Le grand jour” 1991)
On My Own* 1985, (“l’air de misère” 1980 Fantine), (“Mon histoire” 1991)
A Little Drop of Rain 1985, Èponine, (“ce n’est rien” 1980), (“un peu de sang qui pleure”1991)
*This song consists of a melody (“l’air de misère”) sung by Fantine in 1980 with different lyrics describing her miserable life. “On my own” lyrics were written by Herbert Kretzmer for Éponine in 1985 and paired with the same melody.
The brief comparison below of the first stanza for one of these songs shows how Herbert Kretzmer adapted the 1980 French lyrics to English for the 1985 London performance and illustrates the difference between a “translation” and an “adaptation.”
First Stanza: A "demo" of "adaptation"
“A la volonté du people”/ Do You Hear the People Sing
This popular song appears twice in "Les Misérables," first in Act 1 when the students prepare their rebellion in the café and again in the finale by the full cast. The first stanza in the 1980 French version resembles a “toast” with rebel’s wine to the people’s will and the health of progress. Clearly, the 1985 “adaptation” is a total, albeit poetic, re-creation that carries very different meaning.
|
1980 À la volonté du peuple
À la volonté du peuple Et à la santé du progrès, Remplis ton coeur d'un vin rebelle Et à demain, ami fidèle. |
Translation
To the will of the people And to the health of progress, Fill your heart with rebel wine And to tomorrow, faithful friend. |
1985 Do You Hear the People Sing
Do you hear the people sing? It is a song of angry men. It is the music of a people Who will not be slaves again. |
Three Song Comparisons
Following the "first stanza" illustration (above), we turn now to full consideration of three other songs and their renditions in Paris (1980) and London (1985): 1) “J’avais rêvé d’une autre vie”/I Dreamed a Dream by Fantine; 2) “Demain”/One Day More” by Jean Valjean and cast; and, 3) “Ce n’est rien”/A Little Fall of Rain by Éponine and Marius.
Each song is presented with YouTube renditions in 2 versions--first is the 1980 Concept Album version and then a later recording based on the 1985 London adaptation. Each 1980 Paris version is accompanied by both the French lyrics and English translation while the 1985 version shows only the English “adaptation.” As a general overview, one can say that the 1980 French lyrics in these songs are significantly more "realistic" and "gritty" than the 1985 English adaptation. They are also much closer to the descriptions in Victor Hugo's 1862 novel.
Each song is presented with YouTube renditions in 2 versions--first is the 1980 Concept Album version and then a later recording based on the 1985 London adaptation. Each 1980 Paris version is accompanied by both the French lyrics and English translation while the 1985 version shows only the English “adaptation.” As a general overview, one can say that the 1980 French lyrics in these songs are significantly more "realistic" and "gritty" than the 1985 English adaptation. They are also much closer to the descriptions in Victor Hugo's 1862 novel.
Claude-Michel Schoenberg composed the music for all songs in Paris while Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel collaborated on lyrics. For the London 1985 English-language adaptation, Herbert Kretzmer and James Fenton stirred the lyricist brew with Kretzmer assuming a lead role. In moving from Paris to London, the 3 songs all had title and lyric changes along with a re-direction of meaning. A click on the headings below takes you back in time to the years 1980 and 1985.
Song One:
1980 Paris: “J’avais rêvé d’une autre vie” (I Dreamed of Another Life)
1985 London: I Dreamed a Dream
1980 Paris: “J’avais rêvé d’une autre vie” (I Dreamed of Another Life)
1985 London: I Dreamed a Dream