ESMERALDA NOTRE-DAME DE PARIS

Musical to the novel by Viktor Hugo and music by Riccardo Cocciante
Libretto Luc Plamondon
Orchestration for a big symphony orchestra and a rock band Lyudmil Gorchev

Conductor Vladimir Boshnakov
Director Violeta Gorcheva
Scenography and costume artist Denis Ivanov
Choreography Mario Piazza
Assistant choreographer Ludovic Party
Poetic translation Yordan Peev
Choirmaster Mladen Stanev
Concertmaster Paulina Zaharieva

Esmeralda – Mihaela Fileva
Frollo – Denis Ivanov
Gringoire – Nikolay Motsov
Quasimodo – Boris Taskov
Phoebus /Pheb/ – Bogomil Spirov
Clopin – Aleksandar Panayotov
Fleur De Lis – Gergana Nikolaeva
Ballet, Orchestra, Choir and Children’s and Adolescents’ Studio of the Stara Zagora State Opera, Proto-Bulgarian Survival School Baga-Tur

The author, Riccardo Cocciante, was inspired by the great eponymous work by Victor Hugo. The music is popular, in some places dramatic, but very melodious. The leading principle is the editing cinema principle with the abrupt and contrasting transfers, extreme scenes, dramaturgically embedded and supported by the laconic expression of the musical form. The Choir, which is the main character, is present as a metaphor of the Cathedral of Fate, of Providence and Supreme Reason”, shares the director Violeta Gorcheva.
According to Mario Piazza, “This work is a hymn of the diversity, denunciation of the indifference to the suffering of people, a scream which contains the suffering of those who are considered different by society, which has forgotten the very meaning of humaneness, a work that speaks of love.”
“The only elements which illustrate directly the church are the big depiction of the mourning Madonna – a splendid and infinitely expressive statue of the Holy Mother from the Cathedral of Barcelona /The Burial of Jesus by Josep Llimona and Bruguera (1864 – 1934), created in 1920/. It creates the feeling of empathy with the characters in the spectacle. The other real elements are the three bells, which symbolically represent the tower of Quasimodo and the place he lives in. The costumes are contemporary, with no engaging specificity in the epoch and style, just somewhere in 20th century. Taken to the foreground are the characters of the heroes and their social individuality and specificity, as spectacular”, adds the artist Denis Ivanov.

Performed in Bulgarian.
Duration 2 hours and 30 minutes, with one interval
Premiere: 30 June /Thursday/ 2022, 21.00 , stage Antique Forum Augusta Traiana