LES MISÉRABLES by Victor Hugo.Herbert Kretzmer, Lyricist for ‘Les Misérables,’ Dies at 95. Les Misérables The Bishop

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Herbert Kretzmer, Lyricist for ‘Les Misérables,’ Dies at 95

A London theater critic, he turned a little-known French musical into a global blockbuster, earning $20 million in royalties.

By ROBERT D. MCFADDEN

Herbert Kretzmer, OBE (5 October 1925 – 14 October 2020) was an English journalist and lyricist. He was best known as the lyricist for the English-language musical adaptation of Les Misérables and for his long-time collaboration writing the English-language lyrics to the songs of French songwriter Charles Aznavour.^[1]

Contents

• 1Early life
• 2Journalist
• 3Lyricist
• 4Honours
• 5Personal life
• 6References
• 7External links
  
  

Kretzmer's songs for Aznavour and Our Man Crichton came to the attention of producer Cameron Mackintosh in 1984. The latter thought highly of the musical's lyricism, and invited him to write an English version of a French musical Les Misérables (by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg).^[17] Kretzmer's lyrics extended the two-hour Paris original into a three-hour show.^[18] The all-sung "Les Mis" opened at the Barbican Theatre on 8 October 1985 and is still running in the West End, the longest-running West End musical.^[3] The score includes such well-covered ballads as "I Dreamed a Dream", "Bring Him Home", "On My Own", "Master of the House", and "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables". For his work on the Les Misérables lyrics, Kretzmer received Tony and Grammy awards.^[19]

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Music Pad 古典音樂筆記

同樣值得注意的是迪涅區主教的去世時間。小說明載，迪涅區主教生於一七四○年，死於一八二一年，算一算享年八十一歲，也是高壽了。重點是，拿破崙也在這年去世。小說中的尚萬強聽到迪涅區主教去世的消息，穿起喪服，引起眾人議論，好奇於他為何穿喪服，等到知道他是為迪涅區主教服喪，又對他與主教的關係感興趣。

拿破崙是二一年的年中去世，雨果則安排迪涅區主教在年初去世，時間上有落差，但有沒有可能，雨果是在向拿破崙致意呢？迪涅區主教是小說中的偉人，雨果讓他在一八二一年去世，當小說在一八六二年出版時，法國的讀者不會對這個安排側目嗎？

雨果的父親是拿破崙麾下的將軍，當然是拿破崙的支持者，但是雨果的母親則支持保皇派，兩人的政治立場南轅北轍，而雨果的立場則在不同的時期有不同的傾向。拿破崙垮台後，歐洲的保守主義當道，法國的統治權回到波旁王朝手中，是為「波旁復辟」──這也是《悲慘世界》故事發生的背景。長年的革命、戰爭之後，人民渴望秩序、安定、繁榮。尚萬強的成功是在這樣的環境中出現的，它有賴於像賈維這樣的人物夙夜匪懈，揪出潛藏在社會中的壞分子。

但是，復辟的波旁王朝沒有辦法有效解決社會矛盾，滿足人民期望。一八三○年，革命再度發生，尚萬強這時已經六十歲，他在街頭所碰到的年輕小夥子，或許會讓他想到自己在那個年紀親臨的那次革命。

一八三○年的革命結束了波旁王朝的統治，由波旁家族的分支奧爾良家族的路易－菲利普繼位。但是，新的統治者仍然沒有辦法滿足人民期望，甚至，弱化的君權更加重了治理的不彰。拿破崙戰敗於一八一五年，波旁王朝的「有效期」只有十五年，在一八三○年下來。接著上來的路易－菲利普，也只有十八年的時間，在一八四八年的革命中下台。接著掌權的是拿破崙三世。經過短暫的共和之後，拿破崙三世稱帝，在位到一八七○年，這次不是因為內部的革命下台，而是普法戰爭失利。

《悲慘世界》發表於拿破崙三世在位期間。雨果親身經歷了法國半個多世紀的紛擾，不管是波旁、拿破崙或是奧爾良的陣營，都有混蛋、壞蛋以及無能庸懦之輩，他已經不可能只替某一邊說話了。

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhpwV4cwB4o

YOUTUBE.COM

Les Misérables The Bishop

I don't own anything, credits goes to the creators and the author

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“The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories, that it has come to be disbelieved in. Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only.”
―LES MISÉRABLES by Victor Hugo

我們可以在Google Books找到此引文的上下文，.....

It has been said that Victor Hugo has a street named after him in virtually every town in France. A major reason for the singular celebrity of this most popular and versatile of the great French writers is Les Misérables (1862). In this story of the trials of the peasant Jean Valjean—a man unjustly imprisoned, baffled by destiny, and hounded by his nemesis, the magnificently realized, ambiguously malevolent police detective Javert—Hugo achieves the sort of rare imaginative resonance that allows a work of art to transcend its genre. LES MISÉRABLES is at once a tense thriller that contains one of the most compelling chase scenes in all literature, an epic portrayal of the nineteenth-century French citizenry, and a vital drama—highly particularized and poetic in its rendition but universal in its implications—of the redemption of one human being. READ more here: http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/…/les-miserables-by-vict…/#