The late Herbert Kretzmer, who wrote the English libretto for Les Misérables, felt he was not given enough credit for rewriting the French lyrics for the award-winning English-language version, according to unearthed letters.
In a memo addressed to theatre producer Cameron Mackintosh in 1987 – recently donated to Cambridge University Library – Kretzmer referenced “unpleasant actions taken by others to downgrade my credit and contribution”.
Kretzmer outlined his dismay as being seen as merely the translator of the original French song lyrics, rather than being given full credit for the large changes and additions he made to the musical’s most famous moments and songs, including “I Dreamed a Dream”, “Stars” and “Do You Hear The People Sing?”
He wrote: “I think it will clarify matters if I spell out, for the first and I hope only time, the straight and verifiable facts about the authorship of the English version of Les Misérables.”
“Not many people have had the opportunity to compare my English version, page for page, with the original Paris libretto,” he said. “So let me, as briefly as I can, point out the evidence for declaring that, in terms of the actual lyrics now being sung nightly in New York and London, there is very little indeed that can be called translation. Les Misérables in English is virtually a new, rewritten show.”
Kretzmer said that he had totally reconceived and rewritten the English version to the point where there was “no longer any substantial similarity” between his lyrics and the 1980 version conceived in Paris.
He claimed that Les Misérables was not simply rewritten or translated by his efforts, “but a show reborn”.
Dr Liz Savage, special collections assistant at Cambridge University Library, helped to catalogue the Les Misérables sections of the archive.
She found edits in Kretzmer's second draft of the musical, including changing the word “common” to “angry” in the song “Do You Hear The People Sing?”, which goes: “Do you hear the people sing?/ Singing the song of angry men.”
The archive reveals how Kretzmer tried out other words, including “valiant” and “fearless”, before deciding on the version that is popular today.
The English version of the musical runs more than an hour longer than its French counterpart.
The Times quoted Mackintosh as saying about the correspondence in the archive: “Herbie has a very strong moral compass as a person. He has the very quality to reflect in popular song and lyric the ethos of Victor Hugo.”
The musical was adapted from Hugo’s 1862 novel, written in French, for a French stage show in 1981. The English-language version opened in London in 1985 and is the West End’s longest-running musical to date. The show will celebrate its 40th anniversary on 8 October.
Kretzmer worked in collaboration with its French originators, Alain Boubil and Claude-Michel Schönberg. The show has been performed in London more than 15,000 times and has been turned into an Oscar-winning 2012 film, starring Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway.
The archive belonging to Kretzmer was donated to Cambridge University Library, after the lyricist died in 2020, aged 95. The material has been shared to mark what would have been Kretzmer’s hundredth birthday on Sunday (5 October).
The collection also included letters from Frank Sinatra and Peter Sellers, and photos taken by Stanley Kubrick. Alongside letters to Macintosh, there were also letters from Kretzmer’s lawyers discussing the matter.
Kretzmer won an Ivor Novello award for the comedy hit Goodness Gracious Me, performed by Sophia Loren and Peter Sellers, and contributed lyrics to the iconic 1960s TV show That Was The Week That Was, including In the Summer of his Years, honouring the assassinated President John F. Kennedy, which received thanks from the United States Congress.
Kretzmer's widow, Sybil, said: “The prestige of Cambridge University reflects the impact and influence of Herbert's work, and we know the archive will be preserved by the Library and live on for generations to come, just like Les Misérables itself.”
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