Notre Dame de Paris – London Coliseum

Picture: Roy Tan

Notre Dame de Paris continues at the London Coliseum until 27 January 2019.

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

Well, here’s a bit of a novelty… a musical in French with English surtitles in the West End. We had the English version of Notre Dame de Paris at the Dominion back in 2000 when, despite being given a rough ride by the critics, it lasted 17 months and 600 performances.

Since then Luc Plamondon and Richard Cocciante’s sung-through take on the Victor Hugo classic tale of frustrated passion The Hunchback of Notre Dame has been sung in nine languages, performed in 23 different countries and seen by more than 13 million.

Premiered in Paris in late 1998 and celebrating its 20th anniversary, this colourful concoction, a sort of rock opera meets Cirque de Soleil with its chorus of spectacular acrobats and dancers as street entertainers and asylum seekers, is reaching a new generation on a short six-performance visit that ends on Sunday.

It’s an exciting, in-your-face feast of 50 melodramatic songs on the biggest stage in London with a cast of 21 and full orchestra. True, many of the tunes are a bit samey, a comment that could also be applied to the acrobatic routines choreographed by Martino Muller, but there are some big voices to interpret them.

Striking Lebanese actress Hiba Tawaji makes a captivating Esmeralda, the gypsy girl with whom the hideously deformed hunchback Quasimodo is hopelessly and impossibly in love and sex-starved archdeacon Frollo sinfully in lust.

Tawaji, in the part Australian pop stars Tina Arena and later Dannii Minogue took at the Dominion, makes the most of ‘Beau comme le soleil’ shared with Alyzée Lalande as rival Fleur-de-Lys, the fiancée of handsome captain Phoebus (Martin Giroux’s excellent tenor) and later ‘Vivre’, where she realises her destiny is to live or die for her love.

Italian star Angelo Del Vecchio’s rich, sonorous bass does full justice to piteous Quasimodo as he sings of the injustices of the world in ‘Dieu Que Le Monde Est Injuste’ (composer Cocciante’s favourite). And in the tear-jerking finale ‘Dance My Esmerelda’ where he holds the hanged gypsy girl in his arms, mourning her sacrifice for love of Phoebus.

The other memorable songs are ‘Belle’ which has been a big hit on the continent, and ‘Le temps des cathédrales’, the dramatic opening number sung by poet of the streets Gringoire.

The role of this troubadour is given a strong presence by Richard Charest whose ‘Cathedrales’ encore in response to the audience’s standing ovation is most welcome. It’s a grand song.

Daniel Lavoie, repeating the role he played in the English version 19 years ago, is the priestly, conscience-racked Frollo and Jay does well with Clopin, the leader of the Court of Miracles, the wretched place outside the city walls where all the outcasts and undocumented immigrants end up. This is where Esmeralda takes refuge.

These are the seven main players who are supported by 14 dancers in a musical spectacular that zips along at a rare old gallop. Fair enough, the characterisations and Plamondon’s lyrics may not be profound and Cocciante’s insistent but repetitive music can be wearing but the bottom line is that it’s Entertainment with a capital E.

In the interests of balanced reporting, I have to concede that one (at least!) well-known critic hated Act I with a passion and did not reappear for the second but I liked it in English and enjoyed it even more in the beautiful language that is French, with Jeremy Sams’ surtitles high above the stage. À chacun son goût , as they say.  Not perfect by any means, but bien joué, mes amis!

Jeremy Chapman

Readers may be interested in:

INTERVIEW: ‘These characters catch the audience’s attention & imagination’: Stars of Notre Dame De Paris – Angelo Del Vecchio and Hiba Tawaji

Tickets for Notre Dame De Paris are available HERE.