Notre-Dame de Paris in Sherbrooke (QC), October 2018 (English)

One may try to resist the charms of Notre-Dame de Paris, but when the musical is approaching a geographically acceptable point, the invisible bugle calls, and time, money and even perhaps company come out of nowhere, and all of a sudden here you are sitting in the audience and your face is blue with the gleam from the stage light, and the show is about to begin ...

"Нотр-Дам де Пари" в Шербруке (Канада), октябрь 2018 (по-русски)

Можно сколько угодно сопротивляться чарам «Нотр-Дам де Пари», но когда мюзикл приближается в географически приемлемую точку, невидимая труба зовет, и находится время, деньги и даже, возможно, компания, и неожиданно для себя ты уже сидишь в зрительном зале и на лице твоем лежит синяя тень от сценического света, и спектакль вот-вот начнётся...

J’écoute la radio : notes on Daniel Lavoie's concert tour (2012-2014)

©Spectra Musique

 

To see a big picture one needs to step away from it. In order to understand the role a concert tour played in a performer’s carrier one needs to wait a couple of years after the tour’s ended. So, what exactly was the J’écoute la radio tour? Now, 3.5 years later is the best time to answer the question.

Mes longs voyages (show) : Daniel Lavoie's live show, Canada, February 2017

If you go see Daniel Lavoie's new live show Mes longs voyages and are familiar with his eponymous and unabashedly dark album (released in 2016), you are in for a surprise. Because oh, what a magician that Daniel Lavoie is! Hop-la and all the blood, sweat and tears of the album turn into champagne! Effervescent and luminous, Daniel Lavoie sings, dances, switches (or ditches) instruments, talks, laughs, grimaces, savors his time in the limelight, as if trying to put behind him all the troubles that followed him in 2016 (and inspired the album) as fast as he can, and he effortlessly pulls the audience into his happy vortex. And as for that guy on the promo photos - the one who carries the weight of the world on his shoulders – one wonders what he has to do with this show…

Notre-Dame de Paris, le spectacle musical (Paris, December 2016)

When I come to theater I am after some magic. What exactly do I mean by magic? Well, a well-made solid production (or any art work for that matter) usually fits the formula: 1+1=2, while the one with magic in it is more like 1+1=6¿#dh7. In the new production of Notre-Dame de Paris the musical (NDDP) I found exactly this kind of magic in Victor Hugo's story, Riccardo Cocciante's music, Hiba Tawaji's Esmeralda and Daniel Lavoie's Frollo.