Bravo, ‘Les Misérables’

Published 2:19 am Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Bravo to the Salisbury Symphony and Piedmont Players for their uplifting production of “Les Misérables.” Keppel Auditorium reverberated with moving music, beautiful voices and enthusiastic applause for three weekend performances that people in this region will be talking about for a long time.

When organizers announced last year that they were undertaking “the longest-running musical of all time,” rumor spread that this would not be the full “Les Misérables” production. The assumption was that a local theater group and symphony could not pull off the full story of Victor Hugo’s unforgettable Jean Valjean.

But pull it off they did, in a three-hour production with some 200 people on the stage at once. From young Collette’s tender solo to the full cast’s boisterous “Do You Hear the People Sing?” the performance proved once again that Piedmont Players is able to draw some of the best actors and singers from the region to its Salisbury productions. The Salisbury Symphony also pulls in tremendous talent from a wide area, and the orchestra’s performance of the stirring score was superb.

So bravo, Maestro David Hagy, Director Reid Leonard and the many people on stage and behind the scenes who brought “Les Misérables” to a stage in Salisbury.

It was a proud moment — for the Salisbury Symphony and Piedmont Players and for Salisbury-Rowan as a community.