Luc Plamondon was born and raised on his father’s farm northwest of Quebec City in the small rural community of Saint-Raymond-de-Portneuf. He began writing songs and plays while attending university in the 1960s, and dreamed about writing musicals after his first theatre experience, The Three Penny Opera by Brecht and Kurt Weill.
In the late 1960s, he saw the popularity of the New York production of Hair and became convinced he was meant to write rock operas. After a short stint in California, Plamondon returned to Montréal to pursue a songwriting career, working with people including Diane Dufresne, Robert Charlebois, Céline Dion and Ginette Reno. Céline Dion’s tribute album of Plamondon’s songs has gone double platinum in Quebec and has sold more than 1 million copies in France.
In 1978 Plamondon partnered with composer Michel Berger to create Starmania, his first commercially successful rock opera. The show debuted in Paris in 1979 at the Palais de Congrés and enjoyed a second successful three-year run in 1988. It also ran in Quebec in 1980 and 1986 and had productions in Madrid, London, and Berlin in 1992. More than 3 million people have seen Starmania, and 5 million albums have been sold. Plamondon’s other popular rock operas include La légende de Jimmy (1990), about the life of James Dean, and the critically acclaimed Notre Dame de Paris (1998), the Victor Hugo novel set to music.
Plamondon is a Chevalier of the Order of Quebec and Chevalier of the Legion of Honor of France. He has also received six Felix Awards.
