Hey all, I’m sorry I haven’t been updating and I’m sorry that I haven’t finished watching/reviewing The Magical Adventures of Quasimodo. I’m not going to go into reasons or excuses as to why as they pertain to matters of my personal life and I am not going there on this platform. All I really can say I’m not sure when I will get back to those review posts. Just know that I would like to at some point. For now posts will remain sporadic.

And now an unrelated story.

Helene Segara as Esmeralda Notre Dame de Paris picture image
Helene Segara as Esmeralda Notre Dame de Paris

So I also write Hunchback content on Hubpages. Way back in the before times of 2011 I did a page on Esmeralda’s green costume from Notre Dame de Paris. She wears this costume throughout the first act. You can see that hub here.

On this page I compare the different versions of the costume from production to production. Mostly the costume is fairly consist from cast to cast with minimum differences in the overall design. Basically aside from the Italian version, which deviated in design very early on from the Original French version and the Korean version being darker, the costume has remained mostly unchanged from the original 1998 design.

There some changes though. For instance the costume was getting tighter and shorter especially from 2012 to 2015. Good for sex appeal but not for dancing. In 2021 I decided to update all my hubpages which is still an ongoing thing since many require a lot more work. I should mention that prior to my update of the Esmeralda’s green costume page I hadn’t updated it since 2015, a year before the current World Tour production, can’t really say cast since the cast has changed since 2016.

In the 2015 update of my page, I added an observation which basically said that the costume needed a redesign because the newer iterations lacked movement. And in 2016 they did update the costume along with some others in the musical.

Hiba Tawaji as Esmeralda 2016/2017 Notre Dame de Paris picture image
Hiba Tawaji as Esmeralda

The new version of Esmeralda’s green costume has lots layers of lightweight fabric to show off the performer’s movement.

COINCIDENCE?

Maybe. It is suspect though given the timing. Perhaps my obsessive breakdown of the costume gave the production the idea to do a redesign. Perhaps it was parallel thought. Perhaps my page was one voice amongst many asking for a change. I do not know. More than likely it’s a case of parallel thought and the production and I had the idea independently of each other. The simplest explanations are typically the most likely.

Would I like to think I had something to do with it? Yes I would.

It is nice to see that the costume got more movement since that should add to the overall experience for the audience who is watching the musical live. And I guess I can comment on that further when I see it next month (July 2022) in New York City!

7 Thoughts on “An Update and an Unrelated Story

  1. Noémie Baltazar on 07/14/2022 at 8:37 am said:

    Interesting coincidence! Who knows, maybe someone from the design team read your posts, it would be amazing, right?

    I have something to ask, there was a production of NDDP in which the promotional pictures had Esmeralda wearing a red dress with a scarf with fringe on her (I am not sure if it was the spanish production or another one…). Do you have any images of this promotional dress?(If they are good quality it’s better, but if not then it can be any quality really) – And do you know if they ever performed with it or if there is a video? I found that dress gorgeous (the shape seems different as well) and it kinds of reminds of Gina’s version which was the first I watched so it has a nostalgic fell to me. If there is an image or a video could you one day make a small post about it if worth it?

    Thank you so much! ;)

    • jess on 07/15/2022 at 1:56 pm said:

      I do know that red dress. I don’t think it used it any performance. I could be wrong though. I think it was used for the London Cast with Tina Arena and Patti Russo. Shirel also wore it for promo for the 2001 cast.
      I don’t know of any videos and I have few images of the dress.

      Here is great gallery from the London cast with more pictures of the dress https://notre-dame-de-paris.fandom.com/wiki/London_Cast/Gallery

      • Noémie Baltazar on 07/18/2022 at 8:03 pm said:

        This is the one, I got confused with the Spanish version because the pic I saw was too low quality an I thought it was Tahis Ciurana. It’s a pity they don’t have a bohemienne video with this dress design but in green. I have a felling it would look gorgeous for performing a few dance moves.

        Thank you so much for the images, everytime I searched I could only get Disney’s red dress or Gina’s.

        • jess on 07/20/2022 at 10:36 am said:

          It’s funny you mention the red dress but in green because I actually photoshopped that years ago.

  2. Esmee G on 06/06/2022 at 10:17 pm said:

    Please let us know how NDDP is! If I knew what my rehearsal/show schedule looked like for July, I would have gotten a ticket. But I am going to see a regional theater group perform the Disney musical adaptation in July. I even auditioned (didn’t get a part).

    • jess on 06/07/2022 at 8:50 pm said:

      I’m sure I will. The Disney is fine version to see. I saw it way back in 2016. What role did you audition for?

      • Esmee G on 06/30/2022 at 7:08 pm said:

        None in particular. I’m still in that phase as an actress where I’m willing to take almost any role.

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