Throat Virus Hits LES MISERABLES Cast Before Premiere at Melbourne's Her Majesty's Theatre

Her Majesty's Theatre in Melbourne has had to postpone the premiere of Les Miserables. According to Herald Sun, a throat virus has hit the cast members. This Sunday's 6:30pm performance has now been shifted to 8pm on July 27 in order to ensure recovery.

Cameron Mackintosh, who arrived in Melbourne on Tuesday, commented, "One drawback of live theatre is that you can't plan for illness and three cast members, including principal actors, have been struck down with a throat virus and are unable to perform as scheduled. In order to support our company and technical staff who are dealing with the knock-on effect of this illness, we need to move this Sunday evening's preview so that we can recover our lost rehearsal time before next Thursday's opening night."

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Even with this setback, the company is in good spirits. Local producer Michael Cassel stated, "The cast are a really phenomenal company. They've been so supportive of each other and really rallied around one another this week."

Les Miserables was last seen in Australia in 1999. Mackintosh's production of Les Miserables is written by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg and is based on the novel by Victor Hugo. It has music by Claude-Michel Schönberg, lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer and original French text by Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel, original adaption by Trevor Nunn and John Caird and additional material by James Fenton. The original Les Miserables orchestrations are by John Cameron with new orchestrations by Christopher Jahnke, Stephen Metcalfe and Stephen Brooker.