Grande ‘Dame’

Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2000 | 8:35 a.m.

What: "Notre Dame de Paris."

When: Two performances nightly at 7:30 and 10:30. beginning Saturday; dark Sundays and Mondays.

Where: Les Theatre des Art at Paris Las Vegas.

Cost: $69.50, including tax.

Information: Call 946-7000.

Producer Wayne Baruch believes in destiny.

How else can you explain that the international hit musical "Notre Dame de Paris" is making its American debut this week in Las Vegas -- at the Paris?

"The show has some kind of destiny to it," Baruch said as the cast and crew made preparations for the debut. "Its destiny was to come to Las Vegas and to be the turning point in Las Vegas entertainment."

The public premiere in the 1,200-seat Les Theatre des Art will be Saturday night. Private previews are scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday evening, and a benefit gala performance will be held Friday evening, with those tickets selling for $500. The money will go to the Neil Boart Memorial Fund, which supports cancer research.

Whether Baruch's bold statement is accurate will be determined by largely American audiences whose experience with this tragic tale of love and intrigue in the midst of the misery of 15th-century Paris is based on a 1996 Walt Disney cartoon and the 1939 movie classic "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," starring Charles Laughton.

If fans are expecting to see a stage version of either of those works they are in for a surprise: It is closer to a pop-rock opera.

But this 100-minute production strives to remain true to the story in Hugo's 1831 novel, entitled "Notre Dame de Paris." Esmeralda, the story's free-spirited heroine, dies in the end. Baruch says that the death is not a tragic one, but rather one that will have audiences leaving the theater feeling satisfied.

"It is not a dark ending. It is a meaningful one with a punch line that will make everyone happy. The death of Esmeralda is not a death, it is a transition. People can walk out laughing. It is uplifting," Baruch said.

He described the play, a collaboration between Canadian lyricist Luc Plamondon and French/Italian score writer Ricardo Cocciante, as "post-modern impressionistic; very stylized."

There is no dialogue. The story is told in more than 50 songs, most of them sung by the seven principal characters.

"This is not 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame,' " Baruch said. "To think this is the story of the Hunchback and the gypsy girl leaves out 75 percent of what is going on in the story. It is an incredible melodrama. If Victor Hugo were writing today, he would be a screenwriter. He is very cinematic."

Since the play opened in Paris in 1998 it has won more than 20 international awards. One song from the show, "Belle," was named France's Song of the Century. It currently is playing sold-out shows at theaters in Paris and Montreal, and will open later this year in London.

Songwriter Will Jennings, who won a Golden Globe award, an Oscar and a Grammy for the "Titanic" theme song "My Heart Will Go On," translated the play's songs into English. "He had a very hard job," Baruch said. "The French lyrics are so powerful and poetic and he needed to bring his own power and poetry to them."

The soundtrack from the French version has sold an estimated 7 million copies worldwide.

Why they decided to bypass Broadway and open in Las Vegas may confirm Baruch's belief in destiny.

Long before the hotel-casino opened last September, Baruch and his associates had been suggesting to management ideas for possible signature production shows for the $790 million resort. "We had been talking to the hotel for a long time," Baruch said, "for over three years."

None of their ideas were accepted.

Shortly before the musical opened in Paris in the fall of 1998, Baruch received a call from French actor Line Renaud, a consultant to Paris Las Vegas, concerning the new production.

"She said, 'you've got to hear it,' " Baruch said. "It took me three notes to fall in love with it."

Park Place Entertainment CEO Arthur Goldberg and Paris Las Vegas President Paul Pusateri also fell in love with it and saw the karma in bringing the Parisian-themed production to the Parisian-themed hotel-casino.

Baruch and co-producer Joseph Rascoff acquired the American rights to the play and the rest is, as they say, l'histoire.

Rascoff said that "marrying the two together will help to enhance the true Parisian feel of both the production and the property."

The play has drawn raves ever since it opened, with critics calling its score, lyrics and staging "magnificent."

Baruch said that the American production duplicates the French in most repects. But one thing that raised the ire of a number of music unions in France and Canada is that the instrumental music is taped, although the songs are live. Members of the Quebec Musicians' Guild, French Musicians Union and the International Federation of Musicians objected to producers not using musicians.

"This isn't a show where you can put six musicians on stage," Baruch said. "More than 100 were used for this sound track. It could not be done live."

The sparse props and the unusual costuming add to the ambiguity of the play's exact time in history. Although Hugo's story takes place in the 1400s, the themes of love, social injustice and morality that he presents are timeless and so the play's creators built subtle bridges between the 15th and 21st centuries.

Louis Rivierzo made hair pieces for the dancers whom he said "try to incorporate the 15th century into the 21st." The wigs, a combination of human and yak hair and dyed a variety of colors, are coordinated to the individual players and their costumes.

Michael Steepin, of Vegas Costume Works, re-created the costume design of the French designer who made the patchwork patterns for the original production. "It adds to the visible look of the play," Steepin said. "The look is very different."

The focal piece of the set is what is being called "The Wall."

"The wall is a character itself," Baruch said.

Much of the action actually takes place on The Wall, a massive structure that dominates the rear of the stage. This creates the added dimension of vertical, as well as horizontal, movement.

The Wall, in effect, is a second stage.

"The Wall represents the solidity of the Notre Dame Cathedral (where much of the story takes place)," Baruch said. "The play takes place at a time when man first began to express himself spiritually in glass and stone. It was a way of saying to God, 'please don't kill me.' "

Baruch is excited about being the first to premiere a play of this quality in Las Vegas rather than some other venue, such as Broadway. And he is too excited to think about the future of the play, such as an eventual trip to Broadway or a nationwide tour.

He noted that "Notre Dame de Paris" is just the first of many such productions that will begin in Las Vegas. "The history of theater in America has been changing," he said. "This is very fertile ground."

Only one cast member is from Las Vegas -- 18-year-old Kelly Warkmeister, a modern dance major who graduated from the Las Vegas Academy of Performing Arts in June, just five months before landing a spot in a show that could launch her career.

"I was planning on moving to New York or California," the petite blonde said.

She won her spot among the more than 200 dancers who auditioned locally. Nationwide, more than 1,000 auditioned for parts in the musical.

Because there are two performances daily and the songs and action are so demanding, the show has two separate casts.

Only one of the lead actors in the show plays two major roles, alternating between the two each night: Douglas Crawford, 31, plays Quasimodo, the deformed bell ringer, in one performance and Phoebus, the handsome captain of the guards, in the second.

"It's a challenge," said Crawford, whose theater credits include Tommy Tune's Broadway revival of "Grease!", the first national tour of "Hair, the 30th Anniversary" and the lead in "Romeo and Juliet" in Los Angeles.

He described the grotesque-looking Quasimodo as "a tragic figure with an enormous heart and soul trapped in a body people find horrendous. He is a true innocent, very much like a child."

Crawford said that the story "moves like a roller coaster" and people will accept the ending. "I think they will be caught up in the total love story," he said.

Janien Masse, who is one of the production's two Esmeraldas, described her character as "a free-spirited tough girl -- wild and romantic -- who dances around the streets. She is exotic, spiritual and mesmerizing. People think she casts spells. The ending may be a shock, but if you're going to do a story you should do it as it is."

Baruch called the tale a universal romance story, "a family show with lots of thrills, acrobatics and very exciting visual effects."

He summed up the production as a combination of "passion, intrigue, mystery, Paris and great music."

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