No disrespect meant for Hollywood actress Anne Hathaway nor to the producers of the movie Les Miserables. The movie that's going to be shown on Christmas Day has a trailer in YouTube. It featured a snippet of Hathaway's performance of the iconic song I Dreamed a Dream (IDAD). It's a powerful trailer but with Lea Salonga's live rendition of the song in the 25th Anniversary Concert dubbed over the trailer, it became an orgasmic auditory experience. Simply put - beyond perfection.
I do think that Hathaway will be a great Fantine, acting-wise. But the movie is an adaptation of a musical. The whole movie is "sung-through". It means that there is no spoken dialogue - everything is sung. Therefore, aside from facial expressions and body language, the voice is the key component in successfully presenting the character to the audience.
This is not criticism but a statement of obvious facts. Hathaway sings with too many rests, which seemed to break each measure of the song. It sounded as what others refer to as "achy breaky". And to tell you the truth, my sister who sings with a shower head for a microphone and the bathroom as her concert hall, can actually successfully imitate Hathaway's rendition of IDAD. On the other hand, when she tried imitating Lea Salonga's rendition, she sounded more like a cat in heat put inside a sack and tumbling down from the mountains of France. (Peace! Ha-ha-ha-ha!)
The lyrical "I dreamed a dream in time gone by…" sung by Salonga is sublime. "But the tigers come at night…" felt frightening. "…so different from this hell I'm living" is filled with desperation. "Now life has killed the dream, I dreamed…" with that super long "dreamed" is orgasmic! Now, this is how the song is supposed to be sung.
Here, "just for fun", enjoy the modified trailer done by a fan, I guess, of Les Misrables and Lea Salonga, YouTuber wedilyko:
The still photos are from the YouTube video of the behind-the-scenes (not for Les Miserables, LOL!) press shoot of Lea Salonga. I think it's her press kit. Here, watch the beautiful Lea Salonga doing gorgeous poses:
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