Daniel Lavoie: official website

The role of Frollo in "Notre-Dame de Paris"

Regard en coulisses (Internet magazine)
1999

Boosted by a long career in France and in Québec, Daniel Lavoie, the romantic singer, was, at first, the only real star of Notre Dame de Paris … before the success of the show brought fame to all the performers . We met him, the ‘veteran’ of the cast, to speak about the special relationship he has forged with his character, the odious Frollo, and about his plans for the future.

Trust Daniel Lavoie to spot good fortune when it is looming on the horizon: after 15 albums and millions of copies sold, his sixth sense didn’t failed him when Plamondon mentioned his next project to him, the adaptation of the novel by Victor Hugo… “I immediately thought he was on to a good thing”, he explains today. “I felt like doing something else, like embarking on a new challenge. But even then, we couldn’t have foreseen such a resounding success… We all had stage fright on the first night, we were terribly stressed, wondering how “they” would react… But it took off and we’re still flying high with no time to look back.

A difficult part to keep up

If the show turned into an exceptional springboard for those of the cast he affectionately calls “the youngsters”, for him, after years of success as a singer, the challenge laid elsewhere. “They are being offered the world on a plate, it’s fantastic. But for me it was different. I wanted to do something like acting, which I’d never done before. I was amused at the idea of playing a priest and a nasty one at that. Frollo isn’t anything like me at all”, he points out with a big smile so as to underline the fact. “But all actors will tell you that the nasty ones are the most fun to play.” Nevertheless, after more than a year, you can feel that his pleasure, if not blunted, has at least deeply changed. “In the end, it’s much less entertaining than I thought. It’s exhausting because it’s quite heavy to carry off. I hadn’t realised that a character can end up eating you from the inside. An actor can become a slave to his character”. To escape this fate, he has put some analytical distance between himself and his character in order to keep Frollo under control. “He is pathetic, unhappy. He brought up Quasimodo and gave him love. He is not entirely wicked, that wouldn’t be convincing. It’s simply that he cannot control his passion for the gypsy girl, a passion which destroys him”.

Notre Dame de Paris in London.

From now on, he feels like stepping back a bit; when he is asked what he is going to do now that Herbert Leonard alternates with him, he admits “I don’t know! I’ve been working on a record for three or four years, on very personal songs. I’ll be able to go back to it now that I have a bit more time. But I’m taking things slowly. I feel like choosing something which truly interests me.”

Let’s reassure his fans. He is not turning the page, at least not immediately.

“It’s true” he acknowledges, “I’ll be performing in the English production (from May/June 2000). Will it open new doors for us? I don’t know yet, but it’s something which interests me. I have never yet worked in London”. And he admits he wouldn’t say no to an American venture if, by chance, the show was performed on Broadway: “Why not? I love New York”. French musicals which made it worldwide are rare –apart, of course, for Les Misérables, thank you Victor Hugo! – but Daniel Lavoie believes in it : “There is more than one reason behind the success of this show, there are at least 200. And everyone is seduced by it. All the foreign producers who saw it , without even speaking or understanding French, were bowled over by the emotion they felt in the audience. Who knows what will be the fate of Notre Dame de Paris in English?”