After stealing a loaf of bread for his sister's starving child, Valjean is imprisoned for 19 years and released in When a bishop inspires him with a tremendous act of mercy, Valjean breaks his parole and starts his life anew and in disguise. He becomes wealthy and adopts an orphan, Cosette.
A police inspector named Javert pursues Valjean over the decades in a single-minded quest for "justice". The characters are swept into a revolutionary period in France, where a group of young idealists attempts to overthrow the government at a street barricade in Paris.
The French musical premiered in Paris in with direction by Robert Hossein. Its English-language adaptation, with lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer , produced by Cameron Mackintosh , has been running in London since October , making it the longest-running musical in the West End and the second longest-running musical in the world after the original off-Broadway run of The Fantasticks. Many other long-running productions followed on Broadway and around the world, and a film adaptation was released in Alain Boublil's initial idea to adapt Victor Hugo's novel into a musical came while at a performance of the musical Oliver!
As soon as the Artful Dodger came onstage, Gavroche came to mind. It was like a blow to the solar plexus. According to Boublil, "I [began] work on the words An album of this collaboration was recorded at CTS Studios in Wembley and was released in , selling , copies. In , about six months after producer Cameron Mackintosh had opened Cats on Broadway , he received a copy of the French concept album from director Peter Farago.
Farago had asked Mackintosh to produce an English-language version of the show. Initially reluctant, Mackintosh eventually agreed. After two years in development, the English-language version, translated by Herbert Kretzmer lyrics and Siobhan Bracke book , and expanded with additional material by James Fenton , opened in London in October at the Barbican Centre , then the London home of the RSC, before transferring to the West End.
