Saturday, February 11, 2017

"I Dreamed a Dream" - Lea Salonga

Maybe you think mostly of Lea Salonga playing Eponine but this time she plays Fantine in one of the most tragic scenes in all of literature when she dies.  (WIKI:  Lea Salonga)




It's the scene which set the course of Jean Valjean's life since Fantine died from the same mistake many young women make of succumbing to the charmer who leaves them after the baby comes.  That made her a whore in those days and eventually she died from the abuse but she left Cosette and Valjean made it his life to take care of her.


There are many, me among them, who see "Les Miserables" as one of the greatest social and artistic statements of all time and that's amid heavy competition.  Taking that magnificent saga and turning it into a musical was brilliant and I imagine even Victor Hugo would weep when Fantine dies.


This article is extended reaction to the absurdity of trying to use "Do You Hear the People Sing" in even remotely the same context as anything Donald Trump is doing.  The dream Fantine was dreaming had nothing at all to do with the nightmarish two-column world of bankers and the upper class.

The dream isn't the inevitability of Fantine's death but preventing another one.

There was a time when men were kind
When their voices were soft
And their words inviting
There was a time when love was blind
And the world was a song
And the song was exciting
There was a time

Then it all went wrong

I dreamed a dream in times gone by
When hope was high and life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving
Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung, no wine untasted

But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
As they turn your dream to shame
He slept a summer by my side
He filled my days with endless wonder
He took my childhood in his stride
But he was gone when autumn came
And still I dream he'll come to me
That we will live the years together
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms we cannot weather
I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream
I dreamed

- Written by Alain Albert Boublil, Claude Michel Schonberg, Herbert Kretzmer, Jean Marc Natel

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Isnt this from Miss Saigon? ML

Unknown said...

Lea Salonga did sing in "Miss Saigon" but the song is from Fantine after her life has disintegrated. She has the baby, the stud ran off, and she's treated like a whore. Hugo had to make her situation blisteringly horrible to make it credible that Valjean devoted his life to trying to making things right ... but dayum ... "I Dreamed a Dream" is one of the biggest all-time tearjerkers ever.

Here's Ms Salonga from the one you might mean:

"I Still Believe"

Anonymous said...

Thanks! It;s a beautiful song...and her voice! ML

Unknown said...

"I Dreamed a Dream" is one of the most beautiful for tragic love but there's another and I will find that as well since I doubt I will ever get tired of Les Mis.