On 7 April 1997, the Latvian National Opera premiered Zigmars Liepiņš and Kaspars Dimiters’ operatic melodrama “Notre-Dame de Paris”, a Latvian stage version based on Victor Hugo’s novel. Liepiņš deliberately wrote the role of Quasimodo for a rock singer, and he himself performed the synthesizer part in the production. The vivid, melodic staging became one of the standout Latvian opera events of the 1990s – for this work Liepiņš received the 1997 Great Music Award.

After the restoration of independence, Latvian stage art in the 1990s showed a strong desire to combine academic theatre, opera, and the energy of popular music. In that sense, “Notre-Dame de Paris” continued the broad-audience operatic line begun by Zigmars Liepiņš’s “Lāčplēsis”, but placed it within a monumental European literary narrative.