Don’t get too excited…

I was very lucky. When I was in middle school I had the opportunity to travel to Europe. We went to England, Spain, and France.

But the focus of this story time is one night in Paris, France.

My french teacher thought it would be a good (and informative) idea to take a group of MIDDLE SCHOOLERS to see a musical in french.

What musical?

The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Now, the Disney Hunchback had already come out and we, the naive students we were, thought we were seeing a stage production of the Disney movie.

OH HO HO! Definitely NOT!

We were seeing a musical that didn’t resemble the colorful Disney film in the slightest.

It was Notre Dame de Paris…starring Garou and Bruno Pelletier.

Now for those of you who don’t understand why I put that pause there…well, it was kind of a big deal in France. It almost single-handedly revived musical theater in France (ok, confession, I looked this up and this is what Wikipedia says so…take that as you will).

Also, if you’ve ever heard of Il Divo, they sang the opening song from this musical…a lot.

The song is Le Temps des Cathédrales. Look it up and you’ll most likely say, “I’ve heard this song before…how is that possible?”

Well, a lot of classically trained singers >cough< Josh Groban >cough< love to sing this song.

It’s a gorgeous song, don’t get me wrong, but this isn’t exactly the point of this story.

Anybut, Bruno Pelletier was the one who sang this song and he became very famous for it. And Garou went on to become a very popular singer in France, too.

The point I’m trying to make…I was too young to really give a crap about who was in the cast.

And, spoilers, I fell asleep about halfway through Act I. I was barely a tween.

All I truly remembered about this show was that opening song (even as a kid I knew that was a killer song), Quasimodo having a very gravely voice, and actors climbing up and down a wall. That’s it.

Have I looked up the musical online and watched the whole thing? Yes. Did I do it mostly because I wanted to make sure I didn’t make up the entire thing? Also yes.

Whew…this was a longer post.

I guess the main point I think I was going to make was the fact there are things that happen in your life that seem like a small blip in your life. And then when you get older you realize that tiny blip was a larger blip for…well in this case an entire country…sort of? I don’t know. It’s 4 in the morning and I need to sleep.

Goodnight.