Alfie Boe Revisits Les Mis in West End, Jun 2011
Tenor Alfie Boe, one of the stars of last month’s special anniversary Les Miserables concerts at the O2 Arena, will, as previously tipped, revisit the role of Jean Valjean in the West End next year.
According to the Daily Mail, Boe will take over the role at the Queen’s theatre “in early June for a six-month run”. And producer Cameron Mackintosh has hinted that the opera star will also play the role in a forthcoming big-screen adaptation of the long-running Boublil and Schonberg musical.
Speaking to the Mail‘s Baz Bamigboye, Mackintosh said: “Alfie was a revelation in the O2 concert and I believe he has the kind of sound we’ll need for the movie. What doesn’t work is shrieking theatre voices … The strength of Jean Valjean comes through the fitness of his voice. It’s thrilling and incredibly powerful.”
Boe, who only became a professional singer after being overheard singing while polishing a car, won a Tony Award for his performance in Baz Lurhmann’s Broadway production of La boheme in 2006. His other credits include Kismet, The Merry Widow and The Pearl Fishers for English National Opera.
Barbican on 8 October 1985. Based on Victor Hugo’s classic humanitarian
novel set in 19th-century revolutionary France, the musical has a book
by Alain Boublil, music by Claude-Michel Schonberg and lyrics by Herbert
Kretzmer.
After its premiere at the Barbican, the landmark Royal
Shakespeare Company production, adapted and directed by Trevor Nunn
and John Caird and designed by John Napier, transferred, care of
Cameron Mackintosh, to the West End’s Palace Theatre where it ran for 18
years and over 7,500 performances before moving down the road to the
Queen’s on 3 April 2004.
