PROLOGUE: 1815, TOULON & DIGNE
Jean Valjean is a prisoner, originally sentenced to five years, for stealing a loaf of bread during the hardships of the French revolution, has had his sentence repeatedly lengthened for being incorrigible. He is seen with the other prisoners on the chain gang ("Look Down"). Released on parole after 19 years, he finds that the yellow ticket-of-leave he must, by law, display condemns him as an outcast. Only the saintly Bishop of Digne treats him kindly and Valjean, embittered by years of hardship, repays him by stealing his silver. Valjean is caught and brought back by police, and is astonished when the Bishop lies to the police to save him, also giving him two precious silver candlesticks. Valjean decides to start his life anew.
1823, MONTREUIL-SUR-MER
Eight years have passed and Valjean, having broken his parole and changed his name to Monsieur Madeleine, has risen to become both a factory owner and Mayor. The poor and the factory workers sing of their life: "At the End of the Day". One of the workers, Fantine, has a secret illegitimate child. When the other women discover this, they demand her dismissal. The foreman, whose advances she has rejected, throws her out.
Desperate for money to pay for medicines for her daughter, Fantine sells her locket, her hair, and then joins the whores in selling herself ("Lovely Ladies"). Utterly degraded by her new trade ("I Dreamed a Dream") she gets into a fight with a prospective customer and is about to be taken to prison by Javert when "The Mayor" arrives and demands she be taken to a hospital instead.
The Mayor then rescues a man pinned down by a runaway cart. Javert is reminded of the abnormal strength of convict 24601--Jean Valjean, a parole-breaker whom he has been tracking for years, but whom, he says has just been recaptured. Valjean, unable to see an innocent man go to prison in his place ("Who Am I?"), confesses to the court that he is prisoner 24601. The prisoner is freed, and, because Valjean is not under accusation, also walks away.
At the hospital Valjean promises the dying Fantine to find and look after her daughter Cosette. Javert arrives to arrest him, but Valjean escapes. (In the book, Valjean surrenders and is returned to Toulon prison. He makes a dramatic escape by rescuing a man aloft in the shipping, and then falling into the sea. He is presumed dead, but is in hiding.)
1823, MONTFERMEIL
Cosette has been lodged for five years ("Castle on a Cloud") with the Thénardiers who run an inn ("Master of the House"). Thet have been horribly abusing the little girl whom they use as a skivvy while indulging their own daughter, Eponine. Valjean finds Cosette fetching water in the dark. He pays the Thénardiers to let him take Cosette away and takes her to Paris. But Javert is till on his tail...
(In the book, at this point, Valjean makes his way to way to Paris with Cosette, and perceives that he is pursued by Javert. He carries the girl on the roof of the buildings, and [literally] falls into a convent, the Petit Picpus. The nuns accept him as groundskeeper, and there is much business how he can get out of the convent to come in the door and be introduced: he is smuggled out in the casket of the recently deceased Abbess, who is [illegally] buried in the chapel. Cosette is raised by the nuns at the convent for the next nine years, at the conclusion of which Valjean takes a house in the Rue Plumet.)
1832, PARIS
Nine years later there is a great unrest in the city because of the likely demise of the popular leader General Lamarque, the only man left in the Government who shows any feeling for the poor. The urchin Gavroche (who in the book is the son of the Thénardiers, but neglected by them) is in his element mixing with the whores and the beggars of the capital. Among the street-gangs is one led by Thénardier and his wife, which sets upon Jean Valjean and Cosette. (At that incident, the student Marius and Cosette see each other for the first time.) They are rescued by Javert, who does not recognize Valjean until after he has made good his escape ("Stars"). The Thénardiers' daughter Eponine, who is secretly in love with Marius, reluctantly agrees to help him find Cosette, with whom he has fallen in love.
At a political meeting in a small café (the "ABC"), a group of idealistic students prepare for the revolution they are sure will erupt on the death of General Lamarque ("Red and Black"). Marius, however, is distracted by thoughts of the mysterious Cosette. When Gavroche brings the news of the general's death, the students, led by Enjolras, stream out into the streets to whip up popular support ("Do You Hear the People Sing").
Cosette is consumed by thoughts of Marius, with whom she has fallen in love ("Rue Plumet", "In My Life"). Valjean realizes that his "daughter" is changing very quickly but refuses to tell her anything of her past. In spite of her own feelings for Marius, Eponine sadly brings him to Cosette ("A Heart Full of Love") and then prevents an attempt by her father's gang to rob Valjean's house. Valjean, convinced it was Javert who was lurking outside his house, tells Cosette they must prepare to flee the country. On the eve of the revolution the students and Javert see the situation from their different viewpoints; Cosette and Marius part in despair of ever meeting again; Eponine mourns the loss of Marius; and Valjean looks forward to the security of exile. The Thénardiers, meanwhile, dream of rich pickings underground from the chaos to come. ("One Day More")
The students prepare to build a barricade. Marius, noticing that Eponine has joined the insurrection, sends her with a letter to Cosette ("On My Own"), which is intercepted at the Rue Plumet by Valjean. Eponine decides, despite what he has said to here, to rejoin Marius at the barricade.
The barricade is built and the revolutionaries defy an army warning that they must give up or die. Gavroche exposes Javert as a police spy. In trying to return to the barricade Eponine is shot, and dies in the arms of Marius ("A Little Fall of Rain"). Valjean arrives at the barricades in search of Marius. He is given the chance to kill Javert, but instead lets him go.
The students settle down for a night on the barricade ("Drink with Me"). In the quiet of the night, Valjean prays to God to save Marius from the onslaught which is to come ("Bring Him Home"). The next day, with ammunition running low, Gavroche runs out to collect more and is shot. The rebels are all killed, including their leader, Enjolras. Only Valjean and Marius remain alive, although Marius is seriously wounded.
Valjean escapes into the sewers with the unconscious Marius. After meeting Thénardier, who is robbing the corpses of the rebels, he emerges into the light only to meet Javert once more. He pleads for time to deliver the young man to a hospital. Javert decides to let him go and, his unbending principles of justice having been shattered by Valjean's own mercy, he kills himself by throwing himself into the swollen River Seine.
A number of Parisian women come to terms with the failed insurrection and its victims ("Turning, Turning"). Unaware of the identity of his rescuer, Marius recovers in Cosette's care. He imagines himself back at the ABC café ("Empty Chairs at Empty Tables"). Cosette comes to him ("Every Day"), and Valjean observes them together. After Cosette leaves, Valjean confesses the truth of his past to Marius and insists that after the young couple are married, he must go away rather than taint the sanctity and safety of their union. At Marius and Cosette's wedding the Thénardiers try to blackmail Marius. Thénardier says Cosette's "father" is a murderer and, as proof, produces a ring which he stole from the corpse in the sewers the night the barricades fell. It is Marius' own ring, and he realizes it was Valjean who rescued him that night. The Thénardiers, defiant and disgusting as ever, plan to go to America ("Beggars at the Feast").
Marius and Cosette go to Valjean, where Cosette learns for the first time of her own history before the old man dies ("On This Page"), joining the spirits of Fantine, Eponine, and all those who died on the barricades. ("Do You Hear"- reprise)
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Check the modifications for the February 5 and October 27, 2000, performances
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