If you’re lucky enough to have tickets, Ron Bright’s "Les Misérables" will knock your socks off; if you don’t have tickets yet, pray for an extension.

"Les Misérables," affectionately nicknamed "Les Miz," is supposed to knock off socks. It is one of those blockbuster sung-through musicals (i.e., operas) that became an international sensation at the end of the past century — works designed on a grand scale for the world’s largest stages.

"Les Miz" does not so much present Victor Hugo’s epic as condense and summarize, delivering flashes that evoke individual emotional responses. First-timers may find the broad sweep of the plot confusing.

Audiences come to love the work through familiarity, repeatedly listening to the score, imagining the details and back stories, adding layers of depth and meaning. Those who have never seen "Les Miz" might want to listen to a recording beforehand, so as to catch every word and get the most from the experience.

With the exception only of the professional Broadway tour, Bright’s is the most lavish of Hawaii’s productions. Working with a production team that fills an entire page of the program, Bright delivers blockbuster impact on a small stage.

The design team — director Bright, set/lighting designer Lloyd S. Riford III, conductor Clarke Bright, sound designer Kainoa Jarrett and costumers Lacy Rohlf and Peggy Krock — wove a seamless, richly imagined and fully integrated performance.

Riford designed large, multifaceted sets that rotate, swivel and lift for "Les Miz’s" 18 scenes (more than three times the typical number for musicals) and animated those sets with what must have been hundreds of light cues. Riford’s lighting became a major character, providing not just scenes and moods but also backdrops and underscoring for the music and plot cues.

Rohlf’s and Krock’s memorable but never distracting costumes, with wigs and makeup by Lisa Ponce de Leon and R. Andrew Doan, helped the audience keep track of the many characters, adding details and flair while moving the storyline along its whirlwind path.

In these big productions, the aural landscape is as much sound design as live music, and Jarrett added delightful touches throughout (for example, the dripping water in the sewers).

Paliku is a small stage but the production was fully miked, which resulted in occasional painfully loud moments. Miking is easier on singers’ voices and allows for better control of the soundscape, but it also makes it more difficult to track which character is singing. Several minor parts slipped past unattributed.

Taking a page from Richard Wagner’s stage design, the 15-piece orchestra played from underneath the stage, leaving only a half-circle opening for the conductor. Covering the orchestra allowed excellent balance and a smoother, more blended sound than a small theater affords.

Perhaps most impressive was the staging. It is not easy to work with almost 50 performers in limited space without a hint of overcrowding. Bright, the director, has a genius for stage effect: when to bustle with comic details and when to freeze, how to add emphasis in details (as when the rebels all fist-pump together) or slip quietly from one scene to the next. He ensures every person on stage is engaged.

Bright’s cast includes many of Hawaii’s top performers. Most of the leads come with professional experience and operatic power: tenor Kip Wilborn as the valiant Valjean; baritone Leslie "Buz" Tennent, the rigid Javert; Shawna Masuda, an endearing Eponine; and Cliffton Hall, the young hero Marius. Each had achingly beautiful moments, especially Masuda’s "On My Own" and Hall’s "Empty Chairs and Empty Tables."

In "Les Miz," every moment counts: its epic size (large cast, involved plot, 3½-hour length) means that performers often have only a scene or two to convey the totality of their character.

Many made the most of their moments.

A review cannot do justice to the care taken with each of the many characters in Bright’s "Les Miz"; to appreciate what this group has accomplished, you have to see it for yourself.

In fact, go twice.

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Ruth O. Bingham received her doctorate in musicology from Cornell University and has been reviewing the musical arts for more than 20 years.