The musical "Notre Dame de Paris": content, video, interesting facts, history

Musical "Notre Dame de Paris"

What does the musical "Notre Dame de Paris" mean to you? This most popular work has left few people indifferent, it has an extraordinary fascinating power. What is his secret? Maybe the whole thing in a spectacular production, an extraordinary story of love and betrayal, told by the ingenious Hugo? Or is it all about the amazing music in which the French chanson and gypsy motifs are intertwined? Just imagine, because this work contains 50 songs dedicated to the most bright and strong feeling - love, and almost all of them have become real hits.

Summary of the musical "Notre Dame de Paris" and a lot of interesting facts about this work on our page.

Summary

At the center of this sad story is the young beauty Esmeralda, who was brought up by the gypsy king Klopen, who replaced her father and mother. Their camp makes an attempt to illegally get to Paris to find refuge in the Cathedral, but the soldiers notice the uninvited guests and immediately drive them away. Handsome Phoebus da Shatoper, who is the captain of the royal shooters, draws attention to the young Esmeralda. Captivated by the beauty of the girl, he completely forgets about his bride Fleur-de-Lys, with whom he is engaged.

The captain is not the only one who paid attention to the young dancer. Quasimodo also has tender feelings for her, who specially comes to the party of jesters to admire her beloved once more. His stepfather and strict mentor Frollo forbids even to think about this girl and look at her, but does so because of strong jealousy. It turns out that the archdeacon is also in love with Esmeralda, only he does not have the right to do so.

Frolo ripens a cunning plan - to kidnap a gypsy woman and lock her up in the tower, and he tries to steal the girl with Quasimodo in the dark of night, but the gypsy woman saves Phoebus in time. Taking advantage of the moment, the captain immediately invites the beauty on a date.

An unwitting witness to the abduction, as well as the captain’s brave deed, is the poet Gringoire, whom the Gypsy King Kloper wants to hang for breaking the camp rules, because he visited the Wonderland, and it is strictly forbidden to do so. But Esmeralda saves Gringoire and now has to marry him. Here are just a gypsy is already in love with another, in his savior, - Phoebe de Shatopera.

The archdeacon is closely watching Esmeralda and the captain when they went on a date, and, blinded by jealousy, attacked the opponent. As a result, Frollo injures Phoebe with a knife. That's just to pay for this crime already has Esmeralda, because it is she who is accused of attempting to kill the captain. At trial, the gypsy tries to prove that she is innocent, but Esmeralda is not listened to and sentenced to death.

While the girl is in prison awaiting sentence, Frollo visits her. The archdeacon proposes to save the beautiful woman, in exchange for her devotion and love, but she refuses him. Hearing this, Frollo attacked Esmeralda, but Klopen and Quasimodo came to the rescue in time. The whole camp came to help the captive, and a battle ensued between the Gypsies and the royal soldiers. As a result of this clash Klopen dies, and Esmeralda is again arrested, and Frollo himself hands her over to the executioner. In desperation, he shares this with Quasimodo, admitting that he did all this because of the beauty’s refusal, and in anger he throws the treacherous Frollo from the tower, and he rushes to the place of execution, so that the last time he embraces the already dead Esmeralda.

A photo:

Interesting Facts

• "Notre Dame de Paris" is considered to be the first and most significant work of Hugo. And his publisher immediately put tough conditions - the manuscript should be completed exactly after four and a half months, and it was conceived in the spirit of Walter Scott. For comparison, Hugo worked on his next work, The Miserables, which was written after the first novel for seventeen years.
• The author of the novel himself believed that his work is perfect for the plot of some opera, moreover, he even composed the libretto himself.
• After the publication of the novel, Hugo’s contemporaries again became interested in medieval architecture.
• Due to the incredible success of only the first year of performance, the musical was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the best-selling disc.
• When the composer created the musical, he composed the part of Quasimodo presenting himself in this role, it was later decided to give it to an unknown Pierre Garanu (Garou).
• This is the first French musical that made such a breakthrough on the world stage, in particular in America, accustomed to the popularity of only their works. But in his country, this genre has never had much success with the public. Even the most popular works of Andrew Lloyd Webber were perceived very cold.
• In France, the premiere of the performance in 1998 was eagerly awaited, and within six months all the tickets had been bought up.
• In May 1999, the musical received the prestigious World Music Awards for the best-selling French album. A year later, the performance received the second such award.
• The musical inspired the illustrator Benjamin Lacombe to create a whole series of vivid pictures of him, all of which were dedicated to the main characters. Soon, these illustrations were included in the book of Notre Dame de Paris.
• Such a bright plot attracted not only famous composers, but also directors, thanks to which there are more than a dozen screen versions of the novel. The first was created in 1905 and was a silent short film. Among the significant versions of the film should be noted in 1982, directed by Michael Tachner. In 1996, the animated film "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" was released, the plot of which was already slightly modified.

• For the casting, held for the Russian version of the musical, a record number of applicants arrived - about one and a half thousand, and only 45 of them were included in the troupe.
• About $ 4.5 million was spent to stage the Russian version, and 15 million were collected during the entire time of the show in the Moscow theater.
• By 2016, the total number of viewers who watched the show around the world amounted to more than 15 million people.
• It is worth noting that the author of the famous "Notre Dame" also wrote a musical on a rather unusual Russian theme. This work he called "Decembrists", the poet Ilya Reznik was involved in the development of the libretto.
• Currently, a shortened version of the musical Alexander Marakulin is on tour in our country. The actors of the troupe even became defendants in the criminal case of copyright infringement.
• In Nizhny Novgorod, a parody of a performance with almost identical decorations was staged.
• Not done in the French musical production and without some blunders. So, it was noted that anarchy is recorded on the wall, although a different word was originally intended - ananke, which means rock. Already in the new Mogador version of the performance this word was corrected to the correct one.

Popular numbers:

Belle (listen)

Dechire (listen)

Vivre (listen)

Le temps des cathédrales (listen)

History of creation

Surprisingly, this musical became popular even before its premiere due to the fact that a disc with some singles was released (16 songs). The presented compositions created an unprecedented furor and rapidly began to win the hearts of the public. The premiere, held on September 16, 1998 in Paris at the Palace of Congresses, was a resounding success. The role of the main character performed by Noah (in the record), and then Helene Segara, the role of Quasimodo went to Pierre Garanu (Garou), Phoebe - Patrick Fiori, Gringoire - Bruno Peltier, Frollo - Dariel Lavoie. The director was Frenchman Gilles Mayo, who at that time was known to the general public for his productions. In general, the performance turned out to be a bit unusual, because it differed from the well-established format of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musicals and Claude-Michel Schonberg: minimalist stage design, modern ballet choreography, an unusual format.

The songs from the musical immediately began to lead the various charts, and the most popular of them "Belle" and did become a real world hit. After his success in France, the musical set off on its triumphal march to other countries of the world.

In 2000, the composer created a second version of the musical, and this version was already presented in the Mogador Theater. This version was used for Russian, Spanish, Italian, Korean and other versions.

The Russian premiere was successfully held on May 21, 2002 at the Moscow Operetta Theater. Production was initiated by Wayne Fawks, invited from the UK. When they first started working on the score, Julius Kim, who was responsible for translating the libretto, admitted that it was quite difficult to do. Moreover, not only professional poets were involved in such a painstaking process. That is why the author of the translation of the song "Belle" was Susanna Tsiryuk, she also owns the lyrics to the songs "To live", "Sing to me, Esmeralda". But the translation of the single "My love" was done at all by schoolgirl Daria Golubotskaya. It is worth noting that in our country the performance was also unwound according to a European model: about a month before the premiere the song "Belle" was launched on the radio station performed by Vyacheslav Petkun (Quasimodo), which immediately became popular. Elements of western style are also present in the choreography.

In 2011, it was decided to organize an international troupe, which included artists from different countries, made a world tour. Each time she was met by an enthusiastic audience and loud applause. Until now, this musical has been successfully performed on various stages of the world. Over its lifetime, it was shown in 15 different countries and translated into seven languages.

"Notre Dame de Paris" It is considered to be one of the most popular and recognized musicals with the public. Actually, it is not even surprising. He captures literally from the first second to the curtain, does not let go of the audience. It is difficult to imagine another such same most popular and recognizable work. It is even more difficult to say which song, written by the most popular and greatest lyrics of a francophony, is the most beautiful, because they are all beautiful! So what does the musical "Notre Dame de Paris" mean to you? This is love, memories of tender feelings, sadness, print, compassion, and endless admiration for mesmerizing music.