Movie fans were waiting with baited breath to discover the reaction of Russell Crowe to Adam Lambert’s harsh criticism of the singing in Les Miserables.
But the Australian star has been surprisingly conciliatory, saying he can see why the American Idol runner-up found the vocals ‘distracting,’ but saying it was just the way director wanted it.
Tom Hooper’s film version of the award-winning musical by Claude-Michel Schonberg, Alain Boublil and Herbert Kretzmer features ‘live performances’ of all the songs, with the tracks not dubbed over.
And 48-year-old Russell, who plays the film’s villain Javert, tweeted: ‘I don’t disagree with Adam, sure it could have been sweetened, Hooper wanted it raw and real, that’s how it is.”
After seeing the film Lambert, who was himself a musical theatre veteran before shooting to fame on on Idol, said the hit movie ‘suffered massively’ from the singing of its stars.
In a stunning Twitter critique he told his fans: ‘the singing was so distracting.’
He attacked the decision to cast the film based on acting rather than singing, and said ‘with that cast, they should have studio recorded and sweetened the vocals.’
Lambert wrote: ‘Les Mis: Visually impressive w great Emotional performances. But the score suffered massively with great actors PRETENDING to be singers. It’s an opera. Hollywoods movie musicals treat the singing as the last priority. (Dreamgirls was good).’
But he didn’t criticise all the performances, noting: ‘Anne Hathaway as Fantine and Enjolras were the exceptions for me. Helena B Carter and Sasha B Cohen were great too. Eponine’s voice was cool too.’
Lambert said the singing was so bad it ruined the film for him.
‘I felt like I should ignore the vocals and focus on the emotional subtext- but the singing was so distracting at times it pulled me out,’ he said.
‘The industry will say “these actors were so brave to attempt singing this score live”but why not cast actors who could actually sound good?’
Even his own fans lashed out, but steadfast Lambert defended himself, saying: ‘Sorry for being so harsh but it’s so True!
‘I’m so glad we are all discussing this now! Look-I grew up w this musical and so my expectations are quite high. Didn’t mean to b negative.’
And he later tweeted: ‘One more clarification: DO go see it for Anne Hathaways performance. It’s was breathtaking.’
by Helena Bryanlith
