NBT Reviews 'Hunchback of Notre Dame' reviews

One of the features of NBT that I'm starting to regard as a charming idiosyncrasy is the complete unpredictability of the casting. For example, Chiaki Nagoa is given the title role in one performance, and then is cast as a lowly townsperson in another (though, as such, shone brightly like a star). And it always seems to *work*. I suppose I was hoping deep down that Jayne Regan would've been cast as Esmeralda tonight. But if she had've been, instead of a mere whore in the tavern scene, then I wouldn't have had the pleasure of seeing Larissa Wright. She was stunning. Her pointe technique looked impeccable - her jumps breathtaking, her fouettés sharp, her twizzly things dazzling. And according to circumstance, she could be authoritative (among the beggars), servile (dancing for Fleur de Lys' friends), defiant (resisting Frollo's advances), tender (offering a drink to Quasimodo during the pillorying), terrified (in her nightmare) or just a wreck (in the belfry). If that's the result of Australian training, let's see more!

It was nice to see this a second time - knowing the music backwards helps to maintain a sense of sequence, and knowing the plot properly meant I could focus on other things. The Court of Miracles now made sense, and realising that Esmeralda had actually married Gringoire (Darren Goldsmith) to prevent him from being hung, put into perspective the following scene in which she fantasised with Phoebus' (Daniel de Andrade) scarf as Gringoir discovered that it was to be a marriage in name only.

Quasimodo was danced tonight by Christopher Giles and he gave a moving and sensitive performance, but I don't think his "explosion of joy" (after Esmeralda's kiss up in the belfry) was quite as explosive as Luc Jacobs'. Denis Malinkine was an excellent creepy and menacing Frollo, and Charlotte Talbot danced Fleur de Lys. Jayne obviously loved her cameo role as a whore: short though it was, I guess I'll have make that little fix last until the next time.

As I have come to expect, the NBT Orchestra was in fine form, under the baton of guest conductor Brett Morris. You have to go and hear the percussion in the pillory scene live - the CD just doesn't do it justice!

MAN OF THE MATCH

No contest. Larissa Wright.

Tonight's performance was dedicated to the memory of Christopher Gable.