Friday, February 11, 2005

drink, umm.. sing with me

Whoosh!! What was I thinking about four months ago? So here’s the story. You know Les Miserables? Wait let me check the correct spelling. It’s Les Misèrables. Well, it’s a musical based on the novel by Victor Hugo, about a man or a woman named.. Well, you can see it from many different POV. But I like it the most from the POV of Javert. Eventhough then the title wouldn’t be as such. So it was adapted to musical by Alain Boublil, Claude-Michel Schönberg, and Herbert Kretzmer. There were a number of movies as well adapting or based on this story.

Anyway, Les Mis [that’s how I call it] had its 10th (tenth!!) year anniversary concert in 1995. It’s 10 years ago, and currently the German version just finished playing in Berlin. So imagine it. This anniversary concert was not staged as a musical theatre, but as a musical concert. And it was SUPERB! And the best news is that it was recorded for home video.

I borrowed the DVD from the central public library some time ago. Of course I watched it like 4 or 5 times. But maybe after the 3rd was only checking the highlights. And at that time, what I meant by highlights is of course, 'Who am I?', 'Do You Hear the People Sing?', 'On My Own', 'One More Day', and of course the Encore(s). But then, check this out:

Feuilly: Drink with me to days gone by
Sing with me the songs we knew
Prouvaire: Here's to pretty girls who went to our heads.
Joly: Here's to witty girls who went to our beds.
All: Here's to them and here's to you!

Grantaire:Drink with me to days gone by
Can it be you fear to die?
Will the world remember you when you fall?
Could it be your death means nothing at all?
Is your life just one more lie?

All: Drink with me to days gone by
To the life that used to be
Women: At the shrine of friendship, never say die
Men: Let the wine of friendship never run dry
All: Here's to you and here's to me

Marius:Do I care if I should die
Now she goes across the sea?
Life without Cosette means nothing at all.
Would you weep, Cosette should Marius fall?
Will you weep, Cosette for me?

I hate to say it, but for now, this song is 1234. Wait, I think it’s more 124, but I have to prove it first, then. Anyway, just check out the lyrics. In four simple verses, the writers effectively tells different parts of stories and emotions. Ein Wort dafür: Amazing!

But I have only one reply for the song: I'm sorry, but I don't drink. :p

OK, just wait for some more of Les Mis-related post(s) this weekend. But until then, schönes Wochenende, noch..

4 comments:

Mike said...

Well, I still remember the song 'Do you hear the people sing'. I once sang it with my high school choir in a concert. We had several chore from Les Mis. One of them is Castle in The Cloud. There's a young caucasian female who is the daughter of our sopranos Mrs. Jenny Stillman. She sang it in solo. I think it is a great musical.

Charlie Hendrawan said...

hmm.. mengingatkan gue waktu ikutan choir di brunei dulu, soalnya salah satu pieces yg kita nyanyiin adalah medley dari les mis, dan juga cats... :)

Bie said...

duh kalian ini kok choir-nya asik-asik sih.. pada nyanya nyanyi Broadway gitu.. choir gue kok gak pernah ya.. hehehehehe..

kalo cats ada cerita lucu lagi charl, waktu gue ngakak gak sopan pas nonton Team America, sementara penonton yang laen kebingungan kali ya..

Mike said...

Well, I think I will buy Team America DVD right away.