Daniel Lavoie: official website

Notre Dame de Paris resurrected Daniel Lavoie's career

Montréal gazette - February 2000
By Brendan Kelly

Most pop stars don't like to be told they're in the midst of a comeback. Even if they are. It implies that they weren't doing so well recently and most singers' egos can't handle it. Seasoned Montreal singer-songwriter Daniel Lavoie, however, has no problem with the "comeback" tag. He knows all too well that he's been about as far down as pop stars go career-wise. But now, he's back at the top of the pop game, si he can afford to be philosophical about the hard times.

Lavoie, who had to declare bankruptcy, credits his rebound to the transatlantic hit musical Notre-Dame de Paris. He starred as tormented priest Frollo in the original Paris production of the Luc Plamondon and Richard Cocciante pop opera. Since it opened in the French capital in fall 1998, Lavoie has done the whow more than 300 times in France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Canada, in front of more than 2 million people. As well, the original-cast album has sold more than 7 million copies.

Now Lavoie and his Notre-Dame colleagues are set to take on the English-speaking world. The musical's English-version CD, with lyrics by Oscar-winning songwriter Will Jennings, was launched in Canada last week by Sony Music, with three tracks sung by Lavoie. The show will debut in London's West End in late May, at the Dominion Theatre, with Lavoie reprising his role as Frollo.

Notre-Dame has turned younger cast members Bruno Pelletier, Garou, and Luck Mervil into major stars in France, and has thrust Lavoie to the top of the pop panhteon in French-speaking Europe for the second time of his career. He was one of the first Quebec pop artists to break big-time in France, topping the French charts back in the early '80s.

Lost control of Master Recordings

But the good times didn't last. By the middle of the last decade, Lavoie's albums weren't selling as well and his personal finances took a hammering folowing a bitter battle over the record company he co-owned. In the process, he lost the control of the master recordings of his albums and watched as his business problems drained his bank accounts.

"I went as low as you can go, let me tell you," said Lavoie, in an interview at his record label's offices on Sherbrooke St. on Friday. A usual, the strikingly handsome Lavoie is decked out in black, from chic loafers to leather coat, and he seemed remarkably relaxed, given his hectic jet-set lifestyle.

"When everything fell apart quite few years ago, I felt very liberated in many ways," said Lavoie. "It wasn't as big a failure to me as it looked like to others. For me, losing all my money was a liberation. I was out of something that had become so complicated, so terrifying that it was just hell on Earth. I didn' tlike singing, I didn't like music. i just wanted to get out of there and when I finally got through this, I knew I could make more money. I was feeling healthy and strong, and I just got down to work. I sat with my wife and we talked. I just started working at it and I really worked hard. I spent three or four years pushing. And I was enjoying myself more. I was totally free. I didn't have these administrations driving me crazy."

Disc Set of Lavoie's Best Hits

At the same time that Notre-Dame was garnering record ticket sales in Europe and Canada, Lavoie managed to win back the rights to the master tapes of his albums. Late last year, Lavoie and record label GSI Musique released four double-album sets containing eight of the singer's best-known discs. Each set contains two separate albums and the re-issues include everything from 1975's "A Court Terme" to the 1992 English-language album "Woman to Man". Lavoie, who hasn"t released a new solo studio album in five years, has kept busy penning tunes for other projects: five songs for local rocker Luce Dufault's last album, two for the latest by Notre-Dame co-star Pelletier, and the music for Notional Film Board animator Co Hoedeman's acclaimed short Ludovic "The snow Gift" as well as his latest, "A Crocodile in My Garden".

Originally from Dunrea, Manitoba, Lavoie was back in town for only a few days. He heads back to France this week to prepare for the Thursday opening of Notre Dame at the Palais des Congres in the City of Lights, where it runs for three weeks. That will be his last hurrah for Notre-Dame in French for the near future.

Then it's off to London to prep the British production. His wife and two kids ( a son, 10, and a daughter,15) will be joining him in London for the summer run, and he couldn't be more excites about hitting the boards once again as Frollo in this musical adaptation of Voctor Hugo's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame".

"I love it," said Lavoie. "It's just a whole new set of stage frights to keep us going. I'm really addicted to the adrenalin rush, to the terror you feel before going on stage. It is draining work, but it certainly gives you back what you put into it. I've done 330 shows, but in front of 5,000 people every night who're standing and screaming and are just totally mesmerized by the show. We've had, without an exception, 330 standing, 30-minute ovations. it's very energizing."