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Hunchback makes a comeback

Updated: 2012-11-30 10:28
By Zhang Zixuan ( China Daily)

Hunchback makes a comeback

The English-language musical Notre Dame de Paris is touring China. Provided to China Daily

Under the gargoyles of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, a gang of Gypsy refugees seeks asylum. On the wall, someone carved the Greek word anarkia (fate), in front of which the ones who seem gorgeous reveal their ugliness, and the one with an ugly appearance shows his golden heart.

Related: Let the music play

After one year's absence, the English version of the French musical Notre Dame de Paris has returned to thrill Chinese audiences yet again.

After shows in Qingdao, Shandong province, since mid-November, the musical is now onstage at Beijing's Poly Theater until Dec 2. It will then tour Chongqing, Wuhan, Wuxi, Guangzhou and Fuzhou until Jan 6.

Debuting in French in Paris in 1998, the musical is adapted from the work of French novelist Victor Hugo (1802-85). Notre Dame de Paris (The Hunchback of Notre Dame) features the deformed but virtuous bell-ringer Quasimodo and his love - Esmeralda the Gypsy, in contrast with Archdeacon Frollo, who has been enslaved by lust.

The popular musical has been translated into seven languages and has toured the world. The English version toured China for the first time last year.

"The play is something really sincere that I wanted to speak out loud musically," says Richard Cocciante, composer of the play.

He and the lyricist Luc Plamondon have tried to express the novel's gravity and depth in a popular and fair-sounding way.

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