'Les Mis,' 'Notre-Dame' stars plan gala concerts in Seoul
Bruno Pelletier
By Kwon Mee-yoo
Korean fans of musical theater are falling over productions adapted from the works of Victor Hugo the way they once did for musicals written by Andrew Lloyd Webber. The commercial appeal of the work has the stars of “Les Miserables” and “Notre-Dame de Paris” jointly throwing gala concerts at Sejong Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Seoul on May 25.
The concerts will feature six actors from the two musicals based on Hugo’s novels that have been immensely popular in Korea. They will sing 20 songs from the two works along with other musicals such as “Romeo & Juliette” and “Starmania.”
Local fans will be delighted to see Bruno Pelletier, the Canadian singer who played Gringoire in the original run of Notre-Dame, performing in Korea for the first time.
Matt Laurent, who played the role of Quasimodo more than 500 times since Notre-Dame’s premiere and who joined the musical’s Korean tour in 2006 and 2012, will also perform.
Robert Marien, acclaimed for his Jean Valjean in the Les Mis performances in Canada and Broadway, Richard Charest, who once played Gringoire in a Korean Notre-Dame tour, Nadia Bell, a Notre-Dame veteran, and Sophie Tremblay, who played Eponine in a recent Canadian staging of Les Mis, round up the lineup.
The music will be provided by Seoul’s Mostly Philharmonic Orchestra. The concerts will be held at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. on May 25. Tickets cost from 50,000 to 200,000 won. For more information, call 1588-5212.