‘Hunchback’ will debut at Paris

Gary Thompson

Thursday, July 22, 1999 | 9:40 a.m.

Las Vegas took a giant leap forward as an entertainment venue Wednesday when producers announced they'll stage the American debut of the most successful musical in French history at Paris-Las Vegas.

The French-language version of Victor Hugo's haunting tale "Notre Dame de Paris" -- known in English as "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" -- has drawn standing-room-only crowds in France and Canada with its magnificent score, lyrics and staging.

In a nationwide poll released last week French citizens voted "Belle," one of the musical's featured melodies, the century's best song.

The English version of the musical, with lyrics by noted American songwriter Will Jennings, will open in January in a 1,200-seat theater at Paris-Las Vegas, the new $790 million, French-themed resort on the Las Vegas Strip.

"We made a decision to bypass Broadway and Los Angeles and come to Las Vegas," said Joseph Rascoff, an entertainment executive who has produced tours for the Rolling Stones, U2 and David Bowie.

"This is a marriage of the most beautiful music and poignant lyrics ever written, but there's also spectacle in the experience," Rascoff said.

"We needed a venue that wasn't typical of theatrical productions nor of spectacles, but a combination of both, and believe Las Vegas is the ideal place."

Paul Pusateri, president of Paris-Las Vegas and Bally's Las Vegas, said he began searching for the proper entertainment for the new resort two and a half years ago.

"One day Wayne Baruch" -- who co-owns the American rights to the musical with Rascoff -- "called me with the idea of 'Notre Dame de Paris,' " Pusateri said.

"I listened to the music and was captivated, then saw the show and was thrilled," he said.

Baruch said Richard Socciante, a famed French singer and composer, and Canadian lyricist Luc Plamondon collaborated on the musical about the deformed cathedral bellringer Quasimodo, the Gypsy girl Esmeralda and the Archdeacon Claude Frollo, who murders Esmeralda's husband and frames her for the crime.

Jennings, who wrote "My Heart Will Go On" for the movie "Titanic," wrote the English lyrics for the production.

Charles Talar, the original producer of the musical, said he first considered opening the English version in London, but that Baruch convinced him to do it in Las Vegas instead.

"When you write a musical about Victor Hugo's novel," Plamondon said, "you don't expect to wind up in Las Vegas with it. But now this show seems to have been written to play here.

"Richard Cocciante wrote music that's romantic in the real meaning of the word 'romantic' -- music with great passion, great emotion and great melodies," Plamondon said.

The show opened late last year for a limited engagement in a 6,000-seat arena in Paris and played to standing-room-only crowds throughout its brief run. Within weeks after the producers announced another 10-month engagement in the same arena beginning in September every ticket was snapped up.

Rascoff said he first saw the show in Brussels and was moved by the reaction to the production.

"When the cast got three bars into the encore," he said, "the audience took over and sang the entire song. I've never seen anything like it in my 25 years in the entertainment business."

Ticket prices haven't been set although Pusateri said they won't be as high as the $100 top price for some shows in Las Vegas. Advance tickets will go on sale after Paris-Las Vegas opens Sept. 1.

The producers have begun casting calls in New York and will schedule others in Los Angeles and Las Vegas.