Russell Crowe Responds to Adam Lambert's LES MIS Critique

On Monday, BWW reported that rock star Adam Lambert had some harsh comments about the recently released epic musical LES MISERABLES. The American Idol Season 8 runner up posted on his Twitter account, "Les Mis: Visually impressive w great Emotional performances... But the score suffered massively with great actors PRETENDING to be singers." He went on to note," ...it's an opera. Hollywoods movie musicals treat the singing as the last priority."

Lambert also commented on director Tom Hooper's choice to have the actor's sing live rather than lip sync from a pre-recorded track: "And I do think it was cool they were singing live - but with that cast, they should have studio recorded and sweetened the vocals." He suggests, "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?"

Lambert lamented, "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," and concluded, "Sorry for being so harsh but it's so True!"

In a surprise response, LES MIS star Russell Crowe tweeted his support for Lambert's observations last night. When @BrunetteMom123 tweeted to Crowe: "Not sure if you saw @adamlambert's comments about Les Miserables. He was pretty opinionated," the actor posted, "I don't disagree with Adam, sure it could have been sweetened, [Les Miserables director Tom] Hooper wanted it raw and real, that's how it is."

Helmed by The King's Speech's Academy Award-winning director, Tom Hooper, the Working Title/Cameron Mackintosh production stars Hugh Jackman, Oscar winner Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Redmayne, Aaron Tveit, Samantha Barks, with Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen.

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