This April (11-12 & 17-19), Ram's Head Theatrical Society at Stanford University will bring Bay Area audiences a reinvented production of the musical phenomenon LES MISERABLES. This production will include a special immersive element called the Opera-Going Experience Project. Created by Stanford students specifically for this production, this element seeks to transport the audience to a 19th century opera house and immerse them in the culture surrounding it before, during, and after the show itself.
Victor Hugo penned the novel LES MISERABLES during the height of The Paris Grand Opéra in the 19th century. The novel has since been adapted into one of today's most beloved musicals--one that naturally parallels much of Grand Opera with sung-through music and viscerally engaging spectacle.
Accordingly, Ram's Head's 2014 production will further harken to Hugo's roots in Grand Opera by transforming Memorial Auditorium, Stanford's largest performance space, into Salle le Peletier, the home of the Paris Opéra in 1862. Beginning at 7:30pm each night, sixteen actors, dressed as bourgeois opera-goers, will meander through the lobby gossiping about their fellow patrons, commenting about the politics of the day, and critiquing Hugo's latest work to further enhance the opera-going experience. Furthermore, the musical on stage will be similar to a Grand Opera with its large cast of thirty-four, complete orchestra of twenty-two, grandeur, lavish designs, and focus on spectacle.
By constructing a piece that creates a French opera-going experience, the aim is to provide a rich theater-going experience for audiences that expands beyond that which is seen on stage. Patrons can look forward to socializing in traditional french arcades, enjoying refreshments before the show, and being in the company of some of 19th century Paris' most renown opera-goers (think Claude Monet,
Richard Wagner, and
Victor Hugo himself).
Ram's Head Theatrical Society is Stanford's largest and oldest student theater company. Over 100 students are working on this production, making it the largest production in recent Ram's Head history. For more information, visit
musical.stanford.edu.
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