THE KRETZMER INTERVIEW.

THE KRETZMER INTERVIEW.Here is the Kretzmer interview. Interesting to me was the discussion of how the songs were influenced both by the demands of the story and practical considerations. The London production was about an hour longer than the Paris production. Stars was a new song added for narrative reasons, to strengthen the role of Javert and his comparison with Valjean. On the other hand, Turning, sung by the women of Paris mourning the deaths at the barricades, was added, Kretzmer says, because there had been a long stretch of time without any voices of women being heard. The melody to Bring Him Home changed the story. In the book Hugo tells how Valjean is jealous of Marius, who is taking Cosette away from him. Valjean’s anguish disappeared in the show because of the music. The melody that Kretzmer was presented with for Valjean to sing as he is about to rescue Marius consisted “largely of a stately succession of three-note phrases in slow tempo”. Kretzmer was stumped for weeks on how to write the lyric until John Caird, a co-director, said “Sounds like a prayer.” Kretzmer wrote the lyric overnight.