Paris Opera Ballet: Notre-Dame de Paris

Ballet in two acts and thirteen scenes (1965) For his first choreography at the Paris Opera in 1965, Roland Petit created a colourful fresco, as theatrical as it is intense, from Victor Hugo’s lavish novel. Between the four central characters – Esmeralda (Amandine Albisson) in love with Captain Phoebus (Antonio Conforti); Frollo (Pablo Legasa) tormented by desire; and the hunchback Quasimodo (Hugo Marchand) – the tale unfolds against a medieval backdrop populated by a fickle crowd, shifting from elation to cruelty. Combining neoclassical language with the spirit of music hall, Petit (who starred as the original Quasimodo) surrounded himself with leading creative artists of his time: Maurice Jarre for the music, René Allio for the sets and Yves Saint Laurent for the costumes, which he wanted to be “as colourful as the stained-glass windows of a cathedral”.