LOGAN – Les Misérables is back in Logan again and the Utah Theatre is bursting at the seams with its youthful talents.
Given the quality of last year’s Utah Festival Conservatory production of the sung-through musical adaptation of Victor Hugo’s complex 1862 novel, I doubted that director Stefan Espinosa could top his own previous work.
But he did. The pace of this show was faster; the voices of the principal characters are more crisp and heartfelt; and the production’s thunderous choral work supplied the audience with chills at every turn.
It’s a truly marvelous show being performed at the Utah Theatre and it richly deserved the standing ovation from the opening night audience of families and friends on Aug. 12.
Espinosa had promised a show featuring “best of the best” and delivered on that promise in spades. Despite limited rehearsal time, the staging of Les Misérables is thoroughly professional in every respect.
The cast of Les Misérables was selected from student participants of the 2023 Utah High School Musical Theatre Awards competition, capturing the talents of young performers who are undoubtedly on their way to collegiate and community theater productions in the near future.
That cast was led by the incomparable Jackson Taylor as Jean Valjean, the former convict who jumps parole to re-invent himself during the era of the Bourbon Restoration in early 19th Century France.
Jackson has a strong tenor voice that verges into a crystalline falsetto in his dramatic “Bring Him Home” and other solos.
The fugitive is pursued by the relentless Inspector Javert, brilliantly played by Stephen Thatcher. His performance breathes real depth into the character of Javert, raising the decades-long chase to the level of tragedy.
Allie Rigby poignantly plays the doomed Fanine, a young mother desperately struggling against all odds to care for her child Cosette, played by Hannah Bast as a child and Cache Valley’s own Haven Draper as a young adult.
Ms. Rigby’s performance of “I Dreamed a Dream” was a real show-stopper.
The actual villains of Les Misérables are the Thenardiers, superbly played to comic effect by Lily Allen as Madam Thenardier and Claire Francis as her drunken, lecherous husband.
Ms. Francis is a veteran of the 2022 production of Les Misérables when she played one of the heroic leaders of the Paris Street Rebellion of 1832.
This year, she has a meaty role she can really sink her teeth into and never lets go, delivering a wildly over the top performance.
Ms. Francis and Ms. Allen brought down the house, leading the ensemble chorus in the boisterous “Master of the House,” an Act 1 drinking song.
Adelay Stavros appeared as the Thenardiers’ daughter Eponine, reduced by hard times to the status of a Paris waif. Although seemingly street-wise, she reveals a sensitive vulnerability in the gorgeous solo “On My Own.”
Other standout performances came from Elijah Burris as the rebel Enjolras, with sensational vocal contributions to the anthems “Red and Black” and “Do You Hear the People Sing,” and Nathan Adams as the love-struck Marius, who strikes a chord with his solo rendition of “Empty Chairs and Empty Tables,” a lament for his fallen comrades.
While the solo vocals from all these principal characters are dazzling, nothing compares to the sheer power of the entire company of Les Misérables when they break loose in the Act. 1 finale “One Day More” and the glorious final reprise of “Do You Hear the People Sing.” Those moments are literally breathtaking.
Additional performances of Les Misérables are slated at the Utah Theatre on Aug. 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19.
Tickets for Les Misérables can be purchased by calling 435-750-0300 or online at http://utahfestival.org