For Les Misérables, it’s a return to basics. From November 22 to December 31, 2024, the musical comedy which has become the most performed in the world, will be on display at the Châtelet in a new version, in French, directed by Ladislas Chollat. Olivier Py, who today presides over the destiny of the theater, gave the green light and included the show in the 2024/2025 program. Alain Boublil, the author of the libretto, has reworked with small touches some situations and dialogues which, over time, no longer had any reason to exist. With Claude-Michel Schönberg, the composer of all music, he announced the opening of the ticket office, in 42e Rue, Laurent Valière’s show on France Musique.
Also read Les Misérables: more than thirty years of success around the world
This new adventure began in 2016 when Alain Boublil attended a performance of Oliver Twist, a musical comedy, directed by Ladislas Chollat, in the Salle Gaveau. Immediately seduced by the latter’s work, close to what he is used to seeing on the big Broadway stages, he challenged Stéphane Letellier, the producer of the evening: to find a way that one day , Les Misérables is on display in Paris, and that Chollat becomes artistically part of the adventure. Six years of work were necessary for the project to come to fruition. Before and after the confinements, Letellier knocked on the doors of several producers likely to provide initial financing. He then met, in London, Cameron Mackintosh, who was behind the production of the English version in the mid-1980s. He got an almost immediate green light. Cameron Mackintosh was seduced by the project, but undoubtedly not only that. The show has triumphed in 45 countries in 22 languages, but never in France!
The series of performances in Mogador in 1991 was not sold out, far from it. At the time, this failure was attributed to the inability to reserve seats with a bank card. The financial losses did not jeopardize the finances of the British group, but it seems obvious that, morally, a success in 2024 would make us forget this bad step. A new troupe will thus be added to the seven currently touring around the world. There will be 38 people, including 14 musicians. The castings have just started and will continue, probably until the end of the year.
For Stéphane Letellier, who will participate, with the Châtelet, in the production, this adventure will allow France to reappropriate the work of Victor Hugo. It will also, perhaps, pay homage to Robert Hossein, who is truly at the origin of everything. It was he who, in the mid-70s, took the risk of producing and staging Les Misérables at the Palais des Sports, now renamed the Dôme de Paris. At a time when musicals were not finding their audience, many professionals and some friends recommended that he give up what was sure to become a bottomless financial pit. He didn’t listen to anyone and won his bet: the hall, which held around 4,000 spectators, was stormed every evening for six months. The enthusiasm was such that sales in bookstores saw a sharp increase. The adventure could have continued for a very long time, but the set was no longer available. It was on a rainy afternoon at his home in London that Cameron Mackintosh heard the LP bringing together the songs from the Palais des Sports version, brought back, by chance, from a stay in Paris. He asked Hossein for his agreement. Being used to thinking about tomorrow rather than yesterday or the day before yesterday, he gave him, after only a few meetings, the green light for an adaptation freely inspired by his own. He did not even ask to attend the rehearsals in London, nor even for his original work to be rewarded with a share of royalties, however symbolic it might be. He was in fact convinced that, in foreign countries, there would be little interest in a story that did not always feature prominently in the collective memory. He liked to provide blatant proof of this. On the evening of the premiere at the Palais des Sports, in 1980, just after the final bows, an old gentleman walked onto the set. In the first rows of the room, a spectator turned to his neighbor and said: “Look, it’s the author! »
