Notre-Dame de Paris

I'm a great music lover and musicals are among my favorites movies. I've seen as many musicals and musical comedies as I could, but Notre-Dame de Paris is still the best so far. All the singers involved have extraordinary voices and good acting talent, the dancers have been so carefully chosen that their performance simply amazes you.

Richard Cocciante's music is simply divine and unique. Although a great music writer (see also Le roi soleil) and singer himself, Notre-Dame de Paris is the greatest success of his life. The story generally follows the plot Victor Hugo established in his famous novel with some very witty modifications operated by Plamondon. The words are so artfully chosen that one can simply transfer back to Hugo's epoch and relive the story despite the fact that it now takes place on a mere stage. This is the reason why I think this great musical is generally more valued by French speakers or at least with some knowledge of French.

As about the cast: Garou is just perfect for the part of Quasimodo (unforgettable and unique voice), Patrick Fiori and Julie Zenatti- two young beautiful voices to become huge stars of the French musical scene, Daniel Lavoie (just perfect for Frollo's part, human and malicious at the same time- Frollo I mean!!!),Helene Segara as a suave,elegant and refined gypsy girl- far more appropriate than the Italian or English Esmeraldas (although well-known singers such as Tina Arena played in the English version of Notre-Dame), and last, but not least, Bruno Pelletier as Gringoire, one of the most beautiful and powerful voices ever. I wonder... does this man ever breathe?

Just watch this video (or go and see it in Paris if you have the chance; I'll certainly go as soon as I can) and I assure you that you will listen or watch it all over again (especially Belle, which is my favorite song ever).

And one more thing: my husband has always hated French language. The moment he saw Notre-Dame de Paris has started learning it.

Despite not being a true musical performance this is truly a great performance with great singers.Garou with his special voice as the hunchback.A performance i really like.I could sense the pain in his voice.Beautiful Helene Segera as Esmeralda.A vulnerable soul in a racist world.Patric Fioiri as the confused soldier not knowing to whom to give his love.Daniel Lavoie as the priest Frollo torn by the love for Esmeralda and his faith.Bruno Pelletier with his beautiful voice playing Gringoire the poet. Great dance and stage work. Well written music that express all the feelings from each character Great ensemble in a great piece of musical history.

Richard Cocciante and Luc Plamondon's comedy musicale is one of the finest world musicals I have seen. The thing about foreign musicals is they do not carry subtext and thought provoking material in the songs, but within the staging and visuals. Don't expect Stephen Sondheim. The great thing about these types of musicals is that you can think about what's going on while you watch it, and just enjoy the music on CD. The performers are fantastic. I've long been a fan of each of them, Julie Zenatti being one of my favorite solo artists. Garou OWNS the role of Quasimodo, and the rest of the cast is pitch perfect as well. All of the songs are melodic and romantic, and the french language is the icing on the cake. The story is much more accurate than the Disney version, and includes one of the most gorgeous songs ever written, "Belle."

This is definitely a great musical, definitely one of th best adaptation of the original work. As the previous person said, but there was a mistake made by him or her, Bruno Pelletier was Gringoire, not Frollo. The whole musical was amazing, every singer had an amazing performance, communicating emotion even to non-french speakers. It has beautiful music and lyrics, as well as singers that can sing them well. Out of every one of them my favourite is definitely the Quebecois Bruno Pelletier. He had a very beautiful voice and played the character of Gringoire really well (one thing to note is that Gringoire's character is changed a lot, but Bruno Pelletier was superb in his role.) Even thought there are changes from the original work the musical stayed rather true to the original story. A work very worth seeing, even if you don't understand one word of French it can still touch you. (there are subtittles in many language)

I knew music was beautiful and it makes me feel better but I do not really enjoy listening the music and especially classical music such as opera, Beethoven, Chopin, Mozart's music and philharmonic orchestra. I knew it was all wonderful music but whenever I listening to them, I will definitely go sleep. So I wouldn't enjoy it. I can only enjoy part of the music. For example, the movie 'The Shawshank Redemption' when Andy go to the prison's announcement room and then playing the opera(I believe this is one of the best scene in all time.), it was beautiful music.

But, I do like watching musical bit childish way because I would like to watching classic Disney cartoon movie such as Beauty and the beast, The lion king, Aladdin and so on.

I watched 'Notre-Dame de Paris' about 1 or 2 years ago and that time my English wasn't that good enough to understand the subtitles and interestingly I don't even remember what story is about so I don't have any idea what to say about it.

And then a few days ago I have been listening the some musical album such as Les Misérables and Cats. Surprisingly, I realised that how much I enjoyed their singing and playing. This is the what happen when you watched best movie or performance. It's out of nowhere it came to my mind. I don't even know what they talking about or what this story is about but I was so badly wanted to watch it again and listen to music again.

I must give rate for 10/10 because I don't even understand what they were saying or talking about but I still want to watch it again.

This is extremely powerful and beautiful performance and energetic and splendour musical. It doesn't matter whether anyone likes musical or not so I highly recommended to anyone.