The emotional music of “Les Miserables” is what made Carnegie Mellon vocal performance student Donovan Smith step away from performing in operas and return to the stage to perform in Pittsburgh Musical Theater’s powerful production of “Les Miserables.”
“It is so similar to an opera, with the exception of the strict vocal guidelines,” he said.
“I’ve been singing in operas since high school and this musical was the perfect transition into the musical theater world,” said Smith, 21. He began his career with Pittsburgh Musical Theater while he was a student at Woodland Hills High School. “I was in PMT’s previous production of “Les Mis” as Enjolras and Javert”s understudy. Unfortunately, the guy playing Javert back then had a bad sinus infection so I had to prepare for the role the night before!
“I was terrified, the costumers were making a Javert costume for me because of the size difference between me and the other guy and I reviewed lyrics for the entire night and during the car ride to the theater,” said Smith, who lives on CMU’s campus but was raised in Churchill. “When I arrived at the theater, I had to walk through the blocking with our sick Javert. But in the end it all worked out.”
With this last performance of “Les Miserables” as Enjolras, Smith did not appear like the nervous newbie, but as the confident, handsome and charismatic singer and actor that he can be.
“My recent work in operatic singing gave me all the tools that I needed for this part,” he said of his portrayal of Enjolras, the student leader of the revolution. A strong, serious young man who is responsible for gathering students for the cause and he eventually loses his life for the cause. I have learned how to carry myself on stage and how to effectively convey the character to the audience.”
And that he did.
Pittsburgh Musical Theater in association with Robert Morris University presented “Les Miserables,” which tells the story of Jean Valjean who spent 19 years on the chain gang for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s child. Set in 19th century France, Valjean breaks his parole and starts his life over after a bishop inspires him by a great act of mercy. However, Valjean is relentlessly hunted by police inspector Javert, played excellently by the brilliant Brady Patsy.
Throughout the production, Valjean and a parade of characters including the comedic couple of Madame Thenardier, played to the hilt by the beautiful and boisterous Victoria English, and her husband, Thenardier, portrayed by the hilarious Tim Hartman, are pulled into France’s revolutionary period where a Smith’s character and his group of young idealists make their final protest at a street barricade.
“This story can be compared with the present-day revolution in Ukraine,” Smith said. “I watched a few of those hard to watch videos of their barricade against their government to try and recreate the struggle in my mind of what I am doing on stage. My character Enjolras doesn’t waste time with love. He even tries to get Marius, the love bird of ‘Les Mis’ to be more serious because this is a higher call that is bigger than us all.”
The musical version of “Les Miserables” is based on the novel by the same name penned by French poet and novelist Victor Hugo published in 1862. The musical has been seen by more than 60 million people worldwide. It is the third longest-running Broadway show in history behind “Cats” and “Phantom of the Opera.”
“The story is so great that he can only be expected to be recreated with many different mediums (books, film, stage) and each way of telling the story requires a different set of skills. I feel no pressure if our work is compared with the recent film (most likely the most well-known by audiences) because it would be a different ball game if you put some of those screen actors on a stage and some of us in film. A different cup of tea,” Smith said.
Pittsburgh Musical Theater will end its current season with “Seussical the Musical,” which will run at the Byham Theater from May 1-11.
(For tickets visit www.pittsburghmusicals.com.)
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