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| Advertisement from The Canberra Times for the January 1996 season |
by Tony Magee
In July 1994 and again in January 1996, Canberra Philharmonic Society produced two stunning seasons of Boublil and Schonberg’s Les Misérables, the story based on Victor Hugo’s novel of the same name.
The amateur rights had just been released in Australia, for the very first time, and Philo jumped on it immediately. Those productions, at the time, put Philo on the National Map.
And right there as the centrepiece of it all, was Stephen Pike, in his unique and outstanding portrayal of the lead role - Jean Valjean.
Now, being in the orchestra pit at the Canberra Theatre, we were all privy to comments from audience members after the curtain came down. Scores of people would come down to the pit, leaning over the rail and say to one or a number of us “I’ve seen this in Sydney, I’ve seen it in London, I’ve seen it in New York - yours was better.” It happened multiple times every night.
I certainly knew we had a seriously excellent production - everyone in it knew that - cast, crew, orchestra, production team - we all knew that were were performing something really, really special, to a standard that eventually way exceeded anyone’s initial expectations.
My parents also told me on the nights they came - both in ’94 and ’96, that comments like that were frequently overheard both in the foyer at interval and also walking back to the carpark afterwards.
In addition, both seasons were totally sold out and we received a standing ovation every single night.
The director was Colin Anderson, with musical direction by Major Ian McLean and choreography by Michelle Heine.
One further thing I should mention is John Thompson’s set. It was so good - in fact a triumph of set design and construction, particularly the barricade, that multiple theatre companies around Australia wanted to hire it after we’d finished with it, which they did and it went all over Australia, being used countless times for future productions of Les Misérables.
The entrance of the barricade itself in our performances would always receive a thunderous round of applause.
Les Misérables is technically an opera, because it is completely sung through. However, it is not usually actually performed by opera companies. Almost always music theatre companies, so it is more often referred to (incorrectly) as a musical.
Les Misérables is scored for four Yamaha DX7 synthesisers and orchestra. At the time of our first season in July 1994, these were already an 11 year old piece of equipment.
Orchestra manager Michael Burgess had considerable trouble locating four operational ones, but he eventually succeeded.
Lucy Birmingham played keyboards one and two, with myself playing keyboards three and four.
Something unique about the presence of the four DX7's was that in addition to being able to use the hundreds of built in sounds available on the instrument, the composers had created many new sounds especially for the show.
These were stored on a plug-in module that was inserted into the corresponding slot on the top of the DX7.
Some were new musical instrument sounds, but many were actually sound effects.
Lucy and I would select them at appropriate junctures as indicated in the score.
It was truly a great honour to work with cast, production team and crew, both in rehearsal and in performance, for both those Canberra seasons of Les Misérables and something that I will remember with fondness and pride as a highlight of my musical career.
Something unusual I discovered is this: The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge Massachusetts, publishes a Catalogue of Minor Planets. There are 720,000 entries. Most of them are asteroids and one in particular catches my eye. Diameter: 2.6km, date of discovery October 26, 1971. Designation - Permanent, Citation number and name: 24601 Valjean*.
*24601 is the prisoner's number tattooed on Jean Valjean's chest, from when he was imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread in his youth - something we learn early on in the show.
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