This Is My Secret: The Blog and Website of Writer Kristin Cashore

The new movie of the musical Les Miserables, coming out this winter, is live sung -- the actors are singing each take live, instead of miming to a recording. This video explains how and why, and I think it's pretty interesting. (H/t, B!)

I am reaching but I fall
and the stars are black and cold
as I stare into the void
of a world that cannot hold.
I'll escape now from that world,
from the world of Jean Valjean.
There is nowhere I can turn.
There is no way to go on --
I suppose I should warn y'all that this post contains spoilers to the plot of Les Misérables (though nothing you wouldn't be able to figure out by looking at the song list). So. Bear that in mind.

I currently have a favorite six seconds in Les Mis. It's in the song "Javert's Suicide," the version I've been listening to is the original London cast recording with Roger Allam playing Javert, and the six seconds is the final "on" in the lyrics above. Javert is singing a melody we've heard before. It's the same melody Valjean sang during his own identity crisis in "What Have I Done?" The lyrics are also parallel. But here, when Javert gets to the word "on," he sings this amazing, unexpected high no…