The French really do do musicals!

[Jill<br><br>Jill (99)]

"Les Parapluies de Cherbourg" was in the top 100 musicals and as my daughter and her friend are trying to see as many of these as possible, I went onto Amazon.fr to buy it. While I was at it, I bought "Demoiselles de Rochefort" and "Notre Dame de Paris". I thought that "Demoiselles" was the 1960's film with Catherine Deneuve, but it turned out to be a new stage musical of it filmed only last year at the Palais de Congres. It's very entertaining if you are into musicals and sung very clearly, on the whole - but doesn't have subtitles - not even in French. The music is very catchy, even if it is a bit on the Eurovision side at times. All the singers in it are really good. Delphine has a particularly clear voice.

"Notre Dame" is much darker - not a bit like the Disney version!!!! I've not read the book but I imagine it is much closer to it. Some of the songs are enjoyable and the two female singers plus the narrator type singer are good. Frollo and Phoebus are a bit static though! This does come with subtitles in English, French and a few other languages. The box is also very nice as it is like a small hard back book with all the lyrics. This was also filmed at the Palais de Congres. Is that THE place for musicals in France? The stage is colossal!

I want to get hold of the film version of "Demoiselles" now. "Les Parapluies", if you haven't seen it, is quite bizarre as it is like every day conversations, but sung. It has subtitles in French, but it is all so clear, that we didn't need them. Unfortunately, there is a fault at the end of it so I have to send it back for a replacement so we can see the ending.

Next job - look to see what other musicals the French have done! Do you know of any?