Yesterday, I wrote, “…if you’re an Andrew Lloyd Webber fan or if you just want to hear a song well sung, you can see Susan here.” I did not say Mr. Webber had anything to do with the musical Les Misérables. I just assumed that if you enjoyed Mr. Webber’s music, you’d like this song. OK, that’s pretty lame. I goofed.
Grateful for an opportunity to correct my mistake and grateful for something to talk about today, let me hasten to say the producer of the English version of Les Misérables which we’re talking about here was Cameron Mackintosh. The show opened in London in 1985; it was an adaptation of a French musical that had a successful but contractually plagued run in Paris beginning in 1980. You can get the long version of the musical’s history and all involved from Wikipedia or any number of other, probably more reliable sources.
And let us not forget to give credit to the author of the 19th-century novel from which it all flows, Charles Dickens.