“Les Misérables”
Andrew Varela as police inspector Javert. Photo by Deen van Meer Based on the 1862 epic novel by Victor Hugo, the musical version of “Les Misérables” unfolds like a Wagnerian opera – dark, foreboding, larger than life, and sailing straight for the shoals of its tragic destiny. It’s been 30 years since Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil brought their work to the stage, and it can still captivate an audience with its vitality, its forceful passion, and its tenderness. Jean Valjean (J. Mark McVey), unjustly imprisoned for nearly 20 years because he stole a loaf of bread to feed his starving family, struggles to begin his life anew and to gain respectability. Which he does. Years later, having become the owner of a factory and the town mayor, he befriends a dying young woman named Fantine (Betsy Morgan) and vows to look after her daughter, Cosette (Katherine Forrester or Anastasia Korbal), who will in turn grow up to be a flower of a young woman (Jenny Latimer) who falls in love with the idealistic revolutionary Marius (Justin Scott Brown). The latter is also loved by Éponine (Forrester or Korbal, again, as a child, and as a young woman Chasten Harmon), who is the daughter of…
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