Like a New Year gift for musical-goers in Shenzhen, “Notre Dame de Paris,” a world-famous sung-through French musical, will be staged at Pingshan Theater in Pingshan District in Shenzhen on Jan. 3-5, 2020, the theater’s official WeChat account announced Thursday.

 

Seventeen years since its first show on the Chinese mainland, “Notre Dame de Paris” has made its return to many Chinese cities in 2019 with a special version to mark the 20th anniversary of its debut in Paris.

 

Composed by Riccardo Cocciante and with lyrics by Luc Plamondon, the musical is based upon the novel “Notre-Dame de Paris” (“The Hunchback of Notre-Dame”) by French novelist Victor Hugo.

 

The story is set in Paris in 1482 during the reign of Louis XI and tells the story of the tragedy of Quasimodo, the deformed bell-ringer of the Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris, who becomes obsessed with a beautiful gypsy named Esmeralda.

 

Since its debut, it has been professionally played in many countries including Belgium, Canada, China, France, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Poland, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Britain and the United States and has been translated into eight languages, namely English, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Korean, Flemish, Polish and Kazakh.

 

Several songs from the show, such as “Vivre,” “Belle” and “Le Temps des Cathédrales,” have been released as singles with huge success in French-speaking countries.