What you own
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| jackrussell wrote: | | EponineBarker wrote: | | Disney-Bway27 wrote: | | *cough* Like a certain FRANCES RUFFELLE... *cough* |
*looks around* Wow...I must be the only person here who doesn't hate her. *hides* |
I don't hate her 
*hides too* |
It's no that I hate her. It's just I think she had the whole whiney factor to it. Even in just the tinist way. I guess it's also the fact that then most other Eponines try to coy her and sing it with even more whinying. So in the end it just becomes a whiney song. With only the one emotion comeing across. And it being a bit superficeal.
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Quique
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I love Frances.
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What you own
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I like Frances to.
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Disney-Bway27
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Blech. Can't stand her. Never could, and probably never will. Doesn't make me love Les Mis any less, of course...I have pretty odd taste in Les Mis performances, too, apparently. I'm a huge fan of Judy Kuhn, and not a huge fan of Colm Wilkinson.  I'm a bit out there.
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lesmisloony
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I love Judy and Colm. But not Frances, not really. I like her voice, just not her version of Eponine.
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Quique
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Vocally, Judy is my fave Cosette. Rebecca Cain is second.
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MariekeLovesEnjolras
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I love the Dutch u/s for Cosette: Afra Voesenek...
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KristinT
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I personally prefer I Dreamed A Dream. Partly because it's a good song, plain and simple, but partly because it makes me remember how awesome the score for this show is, and how well the thing has been put together.
I first saw Les Miz with someone who knew absolutely nothing about the show, and spent the interval frantically studying the synopsis in the program. But she said to me "All that stuff up until the prostitute died and Valjean rescued her kid from the innkeepers? Elsewhere THAT WOULD BE THE ENTIRE FRIGGIN' MUSICAL!!!"
I think it was Patti LuPone who summarised the role of Fantine as "Come on, sing an amazing song, die... TAXI!!!"
It also both honours and subverts the traditional musical formula, which dictates that by no later than 15 or 20 minutes in, a main female character has to come on, sit down on something, and sing about what she wants from life. (Which, if this was "Guys and Dolls" or "The Sound of Music" or "Oklahoma!" she would then proceed to get.) "I Dreamed A Dream" comes right on cue, explains absolutely everything you need to know about the character, but tragically (and unconventionally for a musical, especially at the time) the story for Fantine ends in horror. The melody then gets to haunt the score for the rest of the show, my personal favourite incarnation being when Valjean arrives at the Thenardiers' inn for the "There is a duty I must do, there is a promise I have made" bit.
Whereas "On My Own", while still poignant and powerful, seems ... I don't know, and I don't know if this is the right way to put it ... somehow emotionally generic. I agree absolutely that with the way the score is structured and the story is being told in the musical that Eponine definitely needed a solo, and it came at the perfect point and it communicates to the audience exactly what it should. But there are a million pop songs and songs in musicals about a girl loving a guy. And not so many beautiful songs in which, like in "I Dreamed a Dream" the character is, basically, admitting defeat. Right at the start of the show.
If it does get made into a movie, I wouldn't be surprised - and, please don't throw up - and I would actually endorse either a popular and competent actress who can sing and wants to get recognised for singing, or a popular and competent singer who can act and wants to get recognised for acting, being cast as Eponine, and a recording of "On My Own" being released as a single to generate audience interest in the film. Frances Ruffelle was already a pop star after all (and I think her, well, unique voice was perfect for the character, much more interesting than a generically pretty pop voice). Just not a single like the Natalie Jackson Mendoza version. That was hideous. Sure, for a stand alone single, make the score a bit more contemporary and radio-friendly. Just not... that way.
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Artemis Entreri
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I like Frances in OLC (that album is so underrated) but can't stand the whole OBC. OBC was terrible in general.
About the songs... for me, it's equal. Two songs that can be good if the singer is good, otherwise you must survive them.
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Eponine93
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I haven't posted (or been on the forums) for ages, but just felt I needed to contribute to this one before going back to midterm studying.
As for which song is superior, I'd have to go with OMO. I find the melody more catching and memorable, the orchestrations wonderful and the melodic swell at "And I know it's only in my mind"... fantastic. At the time in my life when I listened to "Les Mis" fanatically, several-hours-a-day, every day, it fit my mood perfectly and was one of the reasons I was so taken with the show. IDAD is more rythemically challenging, but not as good a melody and I'm not the hugest fan of "But the tigers come at night..." section. Lyrically, IDAD has a slight edge but if I made a list of the pros and cons of each song compositionally, I feel as if OMO would emerge the better song.
That being said, I overwhelmingly prefer IDAD to OMO. Although I initially related to Eponine when I first became a fan of Les Mis--and theatre in general-- in the two years since then I've resolved my stalker-problemsm matured a bit, and have managed to get myself into more healthy relationships. Likewise, I feel as if IDAD is more emotional and at the same time mature-- it deals with real emotion of abandonment while OMO deals with the rather self-invented emotion of being ignored. This discussion also can't exist without the discussion over which character is prefered more-- Eponine or Fantine. After reading the book, I am much more partial to Fantine over Eponine and feel as if the fact my favorite character sings IDAD is a large factor in my preference for the song.
As a side note, I also think my preference has been inspired by Lea Salonga's performance of both songs. I wasn't too impressed by her performance of OMO that I've seen from the TAC, but I saw her as Fantine two years ago almost immediately after she took over the role in the Broadway revivial and it really moved me.
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fanpainter
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Sometimes it depends on which character someone likes more, somtimes it doesn't, as in your case.
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Disney-Bway27
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Fantine is also my favorite character, but I don't think that's why I prefer IDAD to OMO. I adore OMO, but I think IDAD is more understandable...I mean, Fantine's life has been hell. Absolute, utter hell. Eponine's has only been slightly miserable...she's caught in a stalkerish love triangle and has awful parents, but that's it. She doesn't have to resort to prostitution to save her illegitimate child she's never met. Fantine is truly a saint and has had an awful life...I just think her life is more power ballad worthy.
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mezzogeek
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| Disney-Bway27 wrote: | | Eponine's has only been slightly miserable...she's caught in a stalkerish love triangle and has awful parents, but that's it. |
I wouldn't say that's all... Eponine has a pretty miserable time. She lives in abject poverty, goes without food more often than not and is forced into a life of crime by her parents and her situation. Granted, she doesn't suffer nearly as much as Fantine does, but she's hardly living a life of luxury =)
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Disney-Bway27
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That's true, but I think her life might as well be life in luxury compared to Fantine's.
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Orestes Fasting
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First of all, I think it's really stupid to turn the show into some sort of Misery Pissing Contest. Most of the characters' lives suck in manifold ways that don't really bear comparison except that they all fall under the umbrella of man-made social wretchedness.
Second of all, Eponine's life did indeed suck--she went from a happy pampered childhood to destitution, malnutrition, filth, mistreatment at her father's hands, being complicit in crime, and probably some prostitution on the side, all before she hit the age of sixteen. The only reason she isn't as abjectly unhappy as Fantine is because she never had illusions and morals to lose. And she's not the one responsible for that.
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Eponine93
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Orestes: long time, no talk.
I think Eponine did have an illusion to live that she lost when her family lost their inn, what little reputation they had, and their money. Her life as a child wasn't perfect, but I'm sure she always saw herself as living a life of luxury as she had been accostomed to as a young child. With her family abusing Cosette for her lower status, she saw herself as superior and probably imagined that she would develop into a wealthy, desired, glamorous teenager rather than what she turned out to be. Just as Fantine lost her dream of love, Eponine lost her dream of being wealthy and superior, a fact I think she only comprehends when she sees her one desire being torn away from her by the girl she once dominated over. Change the words of IDAD a little to relate more to material world rather than love, and they fit Eponine perfectly.
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jackrussell
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| Orestes Fasting wrote: | | Second of all, Eponine's life did indeed suck--she went from a happy pampered childhood to destitution, malnutrition, filth, mistreatment at her father's hands, being complicit in crime, and probably some prostitution on the side, all before she hit the age of sixteen. The only reason she isn't as abjectly unhappy as Fantine is because she never had illusions and morals to lose. And she's not the one responsible for that. |
Exactly. And a good interpretation of On My Own is one that makes the audience mindful of all these things, not just the unrequited love. But even so, I think it's wrong to say OMO is only a teenager whining about a bloke who didn't fancy her. Love is an important theme in Les Mis, as witnessed by the line in the Finale - "To love another person is to see the face of God".
Eponine had a miserable time of it but because she loved Marius that enabled her to get through the day. Seeing him going after another, more "respectable", girl is bound to hurt because it takes away the one thing that stops her life being squalid and meaningless. OMO is about using a fantasy world of one's own creation to escape the miseries inflicted on you by reality.
We may be straying from the novel here but it is psychologically consistent and fits with the themes of the musical.
Also, don't forget the music of OMO isn't exclusive to Eponine - it is a crucial motif that runs through the score and various characters. Giving it to Eponine is merely tying her into the musical's community of people dealt a rough hand in life.
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What you own
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| Quote: | | Eponine had a miserable time of it but because she loved Marius that enabled her to get through the day. Seeing him going after another, more "respectable", girl is bound to hurt because it takes away the one thing that stops her life being squalid and meaningless. OMO is about using a fantasy world of one's own creation to escape the miseries inflicted on you by reality. |
Ver very true. I love IDAD a bit more then OMO but I think at a ponit in the song shes is not just taling about Marius. And shes talking about the fact that she does not see herslef getting out of this situation. "And still I say theres a way for us" Maybe thats not just about Marius but Maybe theres a way I still can be supieror. That I can rise out of this poverty. The fact that she half lives ina fantasy land. "But when the bight is over" I think this is kinda saying that the day it revials what she really is. Hows he is really liveing. That she fully shes your situation and theres no hideing it. In the night you can not fully she the grittiness of life that she is liveing and she can in ways hide herself from in my retreating to her head. I first heard the melody of the song and the words before I ever herd it. So I always assum,ed it was about her liveing this dream in her head. But suddnely shes can't hide herself from reality anymore.
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Eponine23
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| Artemis Entreri wrote: | I like Frances in OLC (that album is so underrated) but can't stand the whole OBC. OBC was terrible in general.
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The OLC is my favorite English recording, for sure. It had the best cast, IMO. The only thing I liked in particular about the OBC was Terrence Mann's Javert. (Of course, I love Colm Wilkinson, too, but since he's in the OLC, that doesn't really count.)
I've only heard four different versions of On My Own and Emily Hayes Perucca, the Tuacahn Eponine, managed the to show the rougher essence Eponine's character very well. (Now, I have only heard her, Frances (OLC and OBC) and Kaho.) I didn't realize that she had been roughening her voice to sound much more like book!Eponine until I saw Big River in which she sounded completely different.
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Disney-Bway27
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As is with Miss Saigon, the London recording is leagues ahead of the OBCR. Miss Saigon's OBCR is a special kind of failure, though.
Colm Wilkinson's voice is AWFUL on the OBCR.
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Orestes Fasting
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| Eponine93 wrote: | Orestes: long time, no talk.
I think Eponine did have an illusion to live that she lost when her family lost their inn, what little reputation they had, and their money. Her life as a child wasn't perfect, but I'm sure she always saw herself as living a life of luxury as she had been accostomed to as a young child. With her family abusing Cosette for her lower status, she saw herself as superior and probably imagined that she would develop into a wealthy, desired, glamorous teenager rather than what she turned out to be. Just as Fantine lost her dream of love, Eponine lost her dream of being wealthy and superior, a fact I think she only comprehends when she sees her one desire being torn away from her by the girl she once dominated over. Change the words of IDAD a little to relate more to material world rather than love, and they fit Eponine perfectly. |
Well hey there!
What I mean is that the dismantling of Fantine's dreams is a central part of the story: she started out pure and hopeful and was, metaphorically speaking, beaten around the head until she was forced against her will to be the filthy whore society always expected her to be. She fought tooth and nail against it. Eponine's tragedy is different: she started out pure in childhood, but she was raised into corruption in some hideous parallel to primary education: educated into crime and filth and debauchery, and never taught that it was wrong. She might have lost her dreams of being pampered, but being the child of the Th�nardiers, she was learning all along that you have to stoop really low to get what you want, so she didn't have much self-respect to lose.
Compare a flower being plucked and withering away to a flower growing in the darkness and turning colorless and misshapen... (Or don't, because I've been reading too much Romantic literature and it makes me turn metaphorical.)
| jackrussell wrote: | | I think it's wrong to say OMO is only a teenager whining about a bloke who didn't fancy her. [...] OMO is about using a fantasy world of one's own creation to escape the miseries inflicted on you by reality. |
Theoretically, this is true, but one of the failings of the song is that it doesn't put that across clearly enough. An actress has to work hard to make that meaning clear, because otherwise all the audience is going to hear is "Gee golly, wouldn't it be nice if he liked me, but he DOESN'T OH WOE IS ME."
I mean yes, love is a central theme in every incarnation of Les Mis, but the musical's fetishization of one specific form of it bugs me. One of the most powerful things about the theme of love in this story is that it embraces many, many kinds of love--God's love, charity, love of one's neighbor, love of one's country, parental love, friendship, selfless love, redemptive love, destructive love, etc. Romantic love is one of many, and shouldn't get pride of place over the others.
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Quique
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| Orestes Fasting wrote: | | Theoretically, this is true, but one of the failings of the song is that it doesn't put that across clearly enough. An actress has to work hard to make that meaning clear, because otherwise all the audience is going to hear is "Gee golly, wouldn't it be nice if he liked me, but he DOESN'T OH WOE IS ME." |
This is true. It's the one thing I dislike about it. And if I could, I'd rewrite the line "without me, his world will go on turning. A world that's full of happiness that I have never known." I think it just further drives home the "woe is me" thing. It's oddly placed, and overshadows the message of the rest of the song.
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lesmisloony
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The one line of OMO that torments me is "Still I say there's a way for us." It's the one line that makes me yell "Shut UP Eponine!"
Well, the one line in that particular song.
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Vanessa20
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| Quique wrote: | | And if I could, I'd rewrite the line "without me, his world will go on turning. A world that's full of happiness that I have never known." I think it just further drives home the "woe is me" thing. |
That's kind of interesting. I'd always thought of that line as being the one in the song that hints at something more to her troubled psyche than just unrequited love. That happiness that she's never known isn't necessarily just romantic love... it could be everything else that's decent and respectable about his life that she has no chance for.
One time, when I was first getting into the show, I sang OMO for an old woman whom my family helps take care of, and afterwards, she told me that she identified with that one line more than any other. She certainly wasn't going through unrequited love, but she had very little money, was a widow and estranged from her kids, and (not that she'd admit it, but we could all tell) was slightly mentally ill. She obviously identified with Eponine for different reasons than the boppers do.
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EponineBarker
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| Vanessa20 wrote: | | Quique wrote: | | And if I could, I'd rewrite the line "without me, his world will go on turning. A world that's full of happiness that I have never known." I think it just further drives home the "woe is me" thing. |
That's kind of interesting. I'd always thought of that line as being the one in the song that hints at something more to her troubled psyche than just unrequited love. That happiness that she's never known isn't necessarily just romantic love... it could be everything else that's decent and respectable about his life that she has no chance for. |
I've always viewed that lyric like that too. Although for some reason, whenever I'm singing it, I always want to change it to: "without me, his world will go on turning. A world that's full of happiness that I will never known." I don't know why, I just want to. 
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Monsieur D'Arque
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Huh. When I saw the show live, it may have been a goof, but the actress sang "THE world will go on turning," not "HIS world"
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eponine5
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^
Similarly, I think I've also heard actresses sing live, "the world that's full of happiness etc."
I like this, because (like with referring to 'the world' rather than 'his world') it does give her more to say about her lack of a place in the whole world, rather than just how Marius feels about her.
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EponineBarker
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^Before I knew the lyric was "his world will go on turning" I always thought it was (or sounded like it on the recordings) "this world will go on turning."
It's amazing how much a line can mean something different when only one word is changed.
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Vanessa20
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| EponineBarker wrote: | ^Before I knew the lyric was "his world will go on turning" I always thought it was (or sounded like it on the recordings) "this world will go on turning."
It's amazing how much a line can mean something different when only one word is changed. |
On the OBC (or is it the OLC? Or both? I'm too lazy to check) it does sound kind of like Frances Ruffelle sings "this world" instead of "his world," but I think it's just her accent that makes it sound that way.
I've also actually heard someone distinctly sing "this world," but I don't remember who. It wasn't on an official recording.
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Gargamel
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I think the right meaning is "His world":
She fancies marius, and later in the story, as she understands that she will never have him for herself, she wants to make shure that nobody will. That's why she arrange things so that Marius go to the barricade, and that she hides Cosette's letter. She doesn't want Marius' world to go on turning without her...
But I think she also wants Marius to reach a dreamed life she thinks she can't have. She is a little selfish: she doesn't want Marius to share his life, and make both of them happy, she wants Marius for her. She wants a world of happiness because she considers that she was taken away from that happiness and that she deserves it.
If we try to translate the French PRC lyrics, it could be:
Yes, I love him
But I'm alone in the world
all my life, I've waited a shadow (don't know if the idea translates well in english)
My Story
Is an empty shell
A dream full of softness
That I never had my share
Well here, Marius is not named. everything evolves around her. In fact, she wants to be happy. And she thinks that Marius' love is the way to happiness.
Well... that's how I see things here...
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EponineBarker
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| Vanessa20 wrote: | | EponineBarker wrote: | ^Before I knew the lyric was "his world will go on turning" I always thought it was (or sounded like it on the recordings) "this world will go on turning."
It's amazing how much a line can mean something different when only one word is changed. |
On the OBC (or is it the OLC? Or both? I'm too lazy to check) it does sound kind of like Frances Ruffelle sings "this world" instead of "his world," but I think it's just her accent that makes it sound that way.
I've also actually heard someone distinctly sing "this world," but I don't remember who. It wasn't on an official recording. |
It's on both the OBC and the OLC. I always thought it was just her accent too.
| Gargamel wrote: | If we try to translate the French PRC lyrics, it could be:
Yes, I love him
But I'm alone in the world
all my life, I've waited a shadow (don't know if the idea translates well in english)
My Story
Is an empty shell
A dream full of softness
That I never had my share |
I really like those lyrics in that translation (I think it's right...or it could just be I have the same English translation) especially, "A dream full of softness, that I've never had my share."
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Disney-Bway27
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| lesmisloony wrote: | The one line of OMO that torments me is "Still I say there's a way for us." It's the one line that makes me yell "Shut UP Eponine!"
Well, the one line in that particular song. |
Yeah, me too.
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Amber.Rain
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I don't know... I do love both songs.
I have to say that it depends on the actress.
I love when "still I say, there's a way for us" is sung with utter despair . It just sounds much less shallow if the actress sounds almost desperate when she sings it. I don't know... I think that it would be really hard to get the right emotion for OMO, harder than IDAD.
I love them both, but I think I would have to say On My Own is my favorite.
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Eponine23
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My voice teacher just let me borrow a DVD of the production of SE she was in and the Eponine was absolutely perfect in OMO. It wasn't whiny and it sounded completely in character for book!Eponine. She sounded sort of crazy and desperate and it was perfect...Fantine, on the other hand...Well, let's just say I've heard better versions of IDAD...
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