Notre Dame de Paris was the biggest success a musical ever had in Paris and in France back in the nineties. Millions saw it in the heartless Palais des Congres with its 4 000 seats. It was then restageD in 2001 in the more intimate Théatre Mogador ( a theater that was just bought by Jan van den Hoop who will produce Phantom of the Opera there in 2007). The show was ok but guess what, during a show I attended, Esmeralda lost her voice during one of her songs and then during her next number, it was back thanks to a pre recorded voice. That sucked but it wasn't the worst thing. My favorite song in the show, and the less known to French audiences as it was not played on radios a million times a day, la monture, suffered from a serious problem of the sound track that was going onward then backward, and so on. The girl playing Fleur de Lys succeeded in not loosing her temper, she did a great job. Notre Dame de Paris was the first big scale musical we had since Ute Lemper in Cabaret a while ago. IT had flaws but for the first time millions of people went to the theater.
In my heart, I found the answered dream,
and in my soul I found the song, and in my friends
I found the magic, the love,
the moon up above- they were mine, all mine, all along..!