Luc Plamondon, hailing from Saint-Raymond-de-Portneuf, Quebec, discovered his passion for songwriting during his university years in the 1960s.
Inspired by works like The Three Penny Opera, he aimed to craft musicals.
Witnessing the success of Hair in New York, he envisioned creating rock operas.
Returning to Montreal, he collaborated with artists like Céline Dion, Diane Dufresne, and Robert Charlebois.
His partnership with Michel Berger birthed Starmania in 1978, a triumph that saw multiple runs globally, captivating over 3 million viewers and selling 5 million albums.
Plamondon's repertoire includes acclaimed works like La légende de Jimmy (1990) and Notre Dame de Paris (1998), based on Victor Hugo's novel.
Recognized for his contributions, he holds prestigious honours from Quebec and France, along with six Felix Awards.
Plamondon is also known as a francophone nationalist and Quebec sovereigntist.
He is opposed to Internet music piracy.
He is the brother of Louis Plamondon, a long-serving member of the House of Commons of Canada.
45 years ago, Starmania was born, a masterpiece created through the collaboration of Michel Berger and Luc Plamondon. To mark this 45th anniversary in an unforgettable way, France 2 invites you to experience or re-experience this legendary rock opera revisited by the greatest French, Quebecois... and for the first time, the new troupe of Thomas Jolly.
The gypsy Esmeralda captures the hearts of many men, including those of Captain Phoebus, the poet Pierre Gringoire, the hunchback Quasimodo, and his guardian Archdeacon Frollo. A story of love and desire set against a backdrop of social and class turmoil, the tragic story of Notre Dame de Paris comes to life on screen.
Notre Dame de Paris tells the story of Quasimodo, the hunchbacked bell-ringer of the cathedral of Notre-Dame and of his impossible and tragic love for Esmeralda, a beautiful gypsy. A love condemned by injustice and hypocrisy. Quasimodo forced by his ugliness to look at the world from the top of a tower one day he falls madly in love with Esmeralda who sees dancing and singing on the square in front of the cathedral. But Esmeralda is in love with Febo, the handsome captain of the King's guards. Febo is fiancé of Fiordaliso, a young and rich bourgeois, but the exotic and sensual beauty of the gypsy does not leave indifferent the man who immediately falls in love with her. Even Frollo, the archdeacon of the cathedral, is attracted by the gypsy and spying on the moves of the two lovers in a raptus of jealousy and repressed carnal desire to get rid of the rival stabbing Febo behind.
A musical adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel "Notre Dame de Paris" which follows the gypsy dancer Esmeralda and the three men who vie for her love: the kind hunchback Quadimodo, the twisted priest Frollo, and the unfaithful soldier Phoebus.
Show recorded on February 26, 1993 at the Grande Halle de la Villette in Paris for the benefit of the Restos du Coeur.