Starting out as a French concept album, “Les Misérables” made its way to London before becoming one of musical theatre’s most widely exported titles. The show returns to the Théâtre du Châtelet from 11 November 2026 to 10 January 2027: another opportunity to follow the journey of a work that has long been more firmly established on international stages than in France.
From Victor Hugo to the musical stage
Adapting Victor Hugo’s novel as a musical was far from an obvious choice. Published in 1862, the book unfolds as a vast social panorama spanning several decades. Alain Boublil wrote the lyrics, while Claude-Michel Schönberg composed the music.
An initial version was first staged in Paris in 1980, at the Palais des Sports. Alain Boublil’s account, given to France Musique, describes an uncertain professional reception and a genre that was still not well established in France. The success of this first production was not enough to ensure an immediate continuation: when the run ended, the sets were dismantled and the show did not establish itself permanently in the Parisian scene.
This first stage matters, but it is not the version that would go on to tour the world. British producer Cameron Mackintosh discovered the work in the early 1980s and suggested that the writers rework it. After a new adaptation, the show opened at the Barbican in London in 1985. The move into English was therefore not simply a matter of translating the text: it went hand in hand with a new stage of writing and production, shaped for the conventions of British and American musical theatre.
Adaptation as the driving force behind its journey
The trajectory of “Les Misérables” is due in part to its capacity for change. The work retains its roots in Hugo’s novel, but its book, score and performance languages have evolved through successive productions. The Châtelet says the show has been translated into 27 languages and performed in nearly 500 cities. The theatre also credits it with more than 150,000 performances and 130 million spectators: these are figures supplied by the institution, offering a measure of its international reach.
The contrast between its initial success in France and its rise in London sheds light on a common mechanism in the performing arts: a production can travel when a producer gives it the means to change, without its country of origin immediately embracing it as a classic. Here, the writers remain associated with the work, while the rewriting, new production and change of language open other doors. This journey does not mean that the show was absent from France for decades: it had various productions before returning to the Châtelet in 2024-2025.
Its international scale is not based solely on the circulation of the text. A musical must be capable of being staged again by different teams, with a cast and resources specific to each production. The songs and characters provide common reference points, but each performance still depends on the people on stage, the space used and the directorial choices. The work is therefore passed on both as a composition and as an adaptable theatrical project.
A French return, a particular production
The Théâtre du Châtelet hosted a new French-language production during the 2024-2025 season. According to the institution’s presentation, Boublil corrected and adapted the book, Schönberg reworked the score, and Ladislas Chollat opted for a pared-back staging intended to give more space to the story, the text and its interpretation. These details describe the stated intentions for this production; they are no substitute for seeing the performance itself.
The production returns to the same venue from 11 November 2026 to 10 January 2027. The Châtelet has announced French-language performances in the Grande Salle, with tickets listed at between 12 and 129 euros for most of the performances reviewed, and a special price for the evening performance on 31 December. The programme includes both daytime and evening performances. On certain Tuesdays and Thursdays, the theatre also offers an introduction to the work 45 minutes before the show, for ticket-holders only and subject to availability.
For the audience, the useful point of reference is to distinguish between the successive versions. The novel, the first Paris production in 1980, the London adaptation in 1985 and the Châtelet production are not one and the same stage experience. The main outlines of the story and the music link these stages; the language, reworked book, cast and choices of space belong to specific productions. This is the scale on which the 2026 return should be understood: not as a simple revival of an unchanged work, but as a new French-language presentation of a work shaped by its journey from one stage to another.
References
The auditorium of the Théâtre du Châtelet in December 2024. Archive photo.
