Composed: Claude-Michel Schonberg
Arranged: Warren Barker
Les Miz is a sung-through musical with music by Claude-Michel Schonberg, sung-through lyrics by Alain Boubil and Jean-Marc Natel, and a book by Schonberg and Boubil, based on the 1862 novel of the same name by Victor Hugo. Set in early 19th-century France, Les Miserables tells the story of Jean Valjean, a French peasant, and his desire for redemption. After stealing a loaf of bread for his sister's starving child, Valjean is imprisoned for 19 years and released in 1815. When a bishop inspires him with a tremendous act of mercy, Valjean breaks his parole and starts his life anew and in disguise. He becomes wealthy and adopts an orphan, Cosette. A police inspector named Javert pursues Valjean over the decades in a single-minded quest for "justice". The characters are swept into a revolutionary period in France, where a group of young idealists attempts to overthrow the government at a street barricade in Paris.