Les Miserables Reviews

Deb from New Haven, Connecticut

ENJOYED SHOW BUT NOT THE BEST PERFORMANCE

I love Les Miserables and have seen it many times. Hartford a few years ago and usually New Haven. This time, the sound was awful, I knew most of the lyrics but couldn't understand many of the words being sung. The stage was dark throughout the show and a lot of the staging from previous shows seemed to be gone. The voices were strong and some songs were excellent and the finale was wonderful, it always brings goosebumps. The sound issues though made it the least enjoyable of all the shows I've seen. Reading some other reviews, I guess it wasn't just ours.

C Castro from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

GREAT PERFORMERS AND ORCHESTRA...TERRIBLE SOUND BALANCE!

I couldn't understand the performers most of the time. I first thought they were just being too expressive, but then I could tell the audio wasn't balanced that their booming voices made it difficult to understand them. If it wasn't because i have seen the movie and heard the soundtrack many a times before that I would know what was happening. I lost focused of who was singing because the lighting wasn't always on the main person. So I my eyes would wander off looking for who is singing as the costumers were similar for every character and couldn't distinguish some from others. I believe lighting and sound where the problem here. The acting was wonderful and musicians as well. I hope this won't be how the rest of the seasons turns out to be.

Kim from San Francisco, California

FIRST TIME... GOOD AND BAD

Sound was bad.. I couldn't believe a professional, reputed theater could have this bad sound. Especially in the beginning, it was like listing to low bitrate mp3 I pirated from the internet. This contributed to making songs / especially group singing often unintelligible. Especially singers with sharp voices like Eponine and Thenardiers were very hard to understand. As for actors... I was bit caught off guard when I saw a different person than Nick Cartell, but Steve Czarnecki was an amazing Jean Valjean. I couldn't believe he is an understudy, I almost thought it was a double cast. His singing, acting, emotions—everything was on point. Javert, his voice and emotion was good, but his diction was a bit strange. Female characters...I absolutely loved loved Cosette. Gorgeous clear voice, just as I expected Cosette to have. Fantine(Mary Kate Moore) and Eponine(Paige Smallwood), on the other hand, ruined the experience for me, as much as it hurts me to say. Singing was not good at all

P. Dover from Denver, Colorado

ALMOST GREAT 8/5 - FINAL SHOW

All of the main characters were fantastic EXCEPT Javert and Epinine. Javert was in his own key when he sang, but most of the time he was speak-singing. He was kind of awful and made me dread the many scenes with him, by the way. He seemed to be trying too hard to be bad guy. Eponine was played by an understudy for this show. That has never been an issue for nay other show I've seen at DCPA. However, Eponine's voice was so shrill it did not fit the texture of the rest of the cast. Her voice kept "One Day More" from being an otherwise awesome, show-stopping performance. Even Javert's poor singing was not enough to hurt this number. Remove these two actors, and this was an amazing performance.

Elly Harper from Denver, Colorado

LES MIX DENVER

Okay, first of all, was about the 10th time seeing this play. We brought our two grandsons to enjoy this spectacular musical. Too bad the lyrics were rushed and the lighting was very poor. They knew the plot, etc, but couldn't understand a word, especially in the first act. I would have the pacing of the lyrics more defined, the actors facing the audience so we could at least see, if lighted enough, what they were trying to sing. Emphasis of lyrics in many of the songs was misplaced and the spotlight words were garbled. Cast was good, but they are only as good as directed. It hurts to write this note, but that's the way I feel.

Lynne from Denver, Colorado

LES MISERABLES

It was ok. We were in 7 th row. Center. But it was too loud and you really couldn’t understand lyrics. So that made it distracting. Solos were great since you could understand them. The smoke smell was bad in the second half We ate at the limelight and it was absolutely horrible. For 100 dollars it was a total waste. All in all not a great experience. We will try another play this holiday season.

Andie Ptak from Seattle, Washington

POOR SOUND DESIGN SPOILED THE SHOW

To start, I last saw this show from G-center with the original Broadway cast, so this production had a tough act to follow, but I knew that going in. As with many other reviewers, I found this production to be marred by poor sound design—specifically for numbers that were backed by full, loud orchestration. That meant that the large chorus numbers and most of the men's numbers were nearly unintelligable. Thankfully, the wonderful solo ballads by the highly skilled performers accompanied by softer orchestration were wonderful. Eponine's "On My On" and Fontine's "I Dreamed a Dream" were, of course, particular stand-outs, as was "Bring Him Home." It's a shame that so much of the show was so hard to hear. I highly recommend that anyone who has tickets listen to the cast album in its entirity BEFORE you go. I wish I had pulled my vintage vinyl out of the stacks and done so.

Page:12345678910111213141516171819202122232425All