This video from the 10th anniversary Italian cast of Notre Dame de Paris from April 13th, 2012. I beilieve it’s Federica Callori as Esmeralda singing Zingara (Bohemienne).
I’m just going to say this I find a lot of casts of Notre Dame de Paris to have rather mechanical performances and it’s very noticeable in this song with Esmeralda. You can see it in run toward up stage at 0:58 and her interaction with other people. It’s not just Callori many of the Esmeraldas don’t have that ease of motion that Esmeralda should have.
Helene Segara performing Bohemienne as Esmeralda Notre Dame de Paris
Say what you want about Helene Segara’s over-all performance, at least her movements felt natural and not forced.
Lola Ponce as Esmeralda Original Italian Cast Notre Dame de Paris
Lola Ponce was probadly one the best Esmeraldas to combine the choreography and her own natural moments.
What do you think? Do you find some of the Esmeralda’s moments mechanical and overly pre-planned, I mean I know they are but it shouldn’t feel that way. Or do you disagree with me and find the moments natural and fluid? Or do you have an opinion of Callori’s performance? Your thoughts/opinions are very welcome ^_^
I think it’s definitely an issue and probably comes from performers being cast as singers rather than actors in this show. I think that Helene’s movements may have seemed fluid and natural, but they also seemed limp to me like she didn’t feel like doing much but meandering around the stage for this song.
I saw a video of Alessandra Ferrari performing this song and I thought her dancing in the opening instrumental section was great. I can’t recall the rest of her performance but I remember thinking that in that section she looked like the only one who was actually dancing rather than waving her arms around and dancing because she wanted to dance, not because the director told her to.
After watching some videos of both Alexandra Ferrari and Federica Callori I think the difference between the two is that Callori is putting more effort in to singing while Ferrari is putting more effort into acting which would explain why Ferrari is putting more effort into her dancing and Callori is just going through the motions. Though I do appreciate Ferrari dancing though.
I got say I prefer Helene’s meandering to mechanical dancing.