More than 15 million viewers in 27 countries: translated into 20 languages, Notre Dame de Parisa cult musical, is celebrating its 25th anniversary at the Palais des Congrès in Paris, “where it all began, as if in a dream,” composer Richard Cocciante told AFP.
• Also read: 20 shows to celebrate the holiday season
“We and Luc Plamondon (author of the libretto, editor’s note) are very touched to experience such success for so long. “It is a great privilege to see Notre-Dame de Paris again 25 years later…” adds the French-Italian musician.
“Notre-Dame-de Paris has attracted all generations from the beginning. “Today they are the children of our youngest viewers from 1998,” he says happily.
The musical, created in September 1998, was a critical and popular success and is directly inspired by the novel by the monument of French literature Victor Hugo: the story of Esmeralda and the fatal passion that the hunchback Quasimodo and the priest Frollo have for her. The backdrop is the famous cathedral that rises in the middle of the Middle Ages in the heart of the French capital.
For Luc Plamondon, a large part of the success is based on “a story that is known to most people and does not need to be explained, with characters that could have been invented today.”
Luc Plamondon, a successful poet from Quebec (Diane Dufresne, Julien Clerc, Céline Dion…), rose to fame in 1978 with the libretto for Starmania, another cult show composed by French musician Michel Berger and updated last year.
“Luc had been planning to transpose Victor Hugo’s novel for several years. He asked me to compose the music. I hesitated in the face of such a challenge…” recalls Richard Cocciante.
“I first played the music that would become the song Belle. Luc wrote the words almost immediately. We looked at each other. The chemistry was right. We understood that we could do it!” adds the musician.
However, the two authors had great difficulty finding a record company: “It was said that I would destroy my career at Notre-Dame de Paris, but the most beautiful songs in the world are ultimately those that the public chooses,” believes Mr. Cocciante.
Against a current
Contrary to usual advertising for musicals, the album was released nine months before the show. The song Belle has already sold a million copies.
In just a few months, Notre-Dame de Paris gathered more than 450,000 spectators at the Palais des Congrès and brought music shows back to the saddle in France. The first troupe consisted of Hélène Ségara in the role of Esméralda, Garou as Quasimodo, Bruno Pelletier as Gringoire, Daniel Lavoie as Frollo, Patrick Fiori as Phoebus, Luck Mervil as Clopin and Julie Zenatti as Fleur de Lys.
Only the now 74-year-old Canadian Daniel Lavoie still plays the archdeacon of Notre Dame, in love with the “Queen of the Gypsies”. In the same refined setting that symbolizes the surroundings of the cathedral, the troupe gathers around thirty actors, dancers and acrobats.
Plamondon and Cocciante took some liberties with Hugo’s classic, but kept the plot set in the 15th century: the Court of Miracles is transformed into the “Court of Undocumented Immigrants,” which still has very contemporary resonance.
Awarded in France with two trophies at the Victoires de la Musique (Song of the Year for Belle and Best Show), Notre-Dame de Paris, which will offer a new tour of the Zéniths in the spring, is the most exported French musical to date , from Barcelona to Moscow, via Las Vegas, Rome, London, Seoul, Beijing and Montreal, not to mention two recent first-time residencies on Broadway.