Les Mis�rables

| Synopsis |

Glenn played the role of Marius in Les Mis�rables at the Palace Theatre, London. Music is by Claude-Michel Sch�nberg. Lyrics are by Herbert Kretzmer, with original text by Alain Boublil and additional material by James Fenton. Les Mis was adapted and directed by Trevor Nunn and John Caird. The story is based on the novel by Victor Hugo, which was published in 1862.

Les Mis�rables opened in London in 1985, and has often been recognized as the most popular musical in the world; it has been seen by over 40 million people worldwide. It immediately appealed to the imagination of an enthusiastic theatre-going public: With an engrossing story that includes swashbuckling heroes, romance, and a memorable, dramatic score, how could it fail?

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To the Barricades!

Les Mis�rables (meaning "The Wretched") tells the tales of several people searching for justice and happiness in an unfair and tumultuous world. The first scenes portray Jean Valjean, an escaped convict, hardened and bitter because he has spent nineteen years on a chain gang as punishment for the minor offence of theft of a loaf of bread. Due to the kindness of a bishop, he reforms and takes on a new identity, becoming a successful factory owner and mayor of a small town in northern France. His nemesis is the obsessive detective Javert, who mercilessly stalks Valjean in order to return him to prison. Valjean adopts Cosette, the daughter of a destitute woman who had been forced into prostitution, and then becomes ill and dies. To avoid detection by Javert, Valjean and Cosette flee the small town for the anonymity of the city of Paris.

Paris is a city in turmoil in 1832, with unrest sparked by the pending execution of a popular leader who had been the champion of the poor. Against this backdrop, Cosette is smitten with love for a dashing young student and revolutionary, Marius (the character that Glenn played). Love captures the revolutionary's heart, and Marius and Cosette introduce themselves in the beautiful and moving duet, "A Heart Full of Love." Their love is threatened by evil forces: Javert is bearing down in his ceaseless pursuit of Valjean and his daughter, and Marius and the students must prepare for a confrontation with the French troops at the barricades, which the students have constructed to secure their section of the city. A female revolutionary and dear friend of Marius, Eponine, is wounded; she has long suffered unrequited love for him. He takes her in his arms as she dies; she is at last warm and free of pain, and they sing the tender and poignant "A Little Fall of Rain."

The battle at the barricade goes badly for the revolutionaries, and most are killed; Valjean manages to carry away the gravely wounded Marius, having vowed to sacrifice himself if only God will spare the life of his daughter's lover. Javert discovers Valjean in his flight, and is persuaded to allow Valjean to continue on his way to seek medical aid for the wounded Marius. Javert is tormented and broken by this compromise of his own strict conformity with the letter of the law, and he kills himself. Marius is safe; he will be nursed back to health by his beloved Cosette; but he mourns the loss of so many of his brave friends at the barricades. He moves the audience to tears as he sings the emotional and anguished "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables," in which he imagines that he is back in the revolutionaries' old meeting place, a caf�. With heartrending passion, he begs the ghosts of his slain friends and comrades to forgive him for having survived. The story ends with the joyful marriage of Cosette and Marius, "Ring out the bells upon this day of days ... and crown this blessed time with peace and love"; but their happiness is tempered because the exhausted and ill Valjean is dying and must leave them.

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