SYNOPSIS

Four years have passed since the death of Niccolò Paganini. The Church refuses him a Christian burial, claiming that he sold his soul to the devil. His son, Achille Paganini, requests an ecclesiastical trial in the hope of obtaining permission to bury his father. Father Lucio Amos, a former secret inquisitor, opposes the request and insists that Paganini was a servant of the devil. As the trial begins, Achille starts to recount his father’s life.

Seven years earlier, Father Lucio Amos hunted suspected servants of the devil in Rome. Those who confessed were sent to trial. Those who refused were shot. One day, Lucio points a gun at a woman and orders her to confess that she is possessed by the devil. The woman seizes the gun, declares that she is not a devil, and takes her own life. After the incident, Lucio continues to live with both his reputation as a famous devil hunter and the guilt and nightmares caused by her death.

Businessman Collet Bonheur holds a pre-opening party for Casino de Paganini, a casino bearing Paganini’s name. The father of Collet’s fiancée, Charlotte de Bernier, openly looks down on him. He says that the only reason a nobleman like himself associates with Collet is money. Paganini suddenly appears at the party. He states that he never agreed to the use of his name for a casino and presents a document prohibiting the gambling business from opening. He declares that the building is not a casino but a performance venue, where he will give a grand opening concert himself. The investors become unsettled. Collet believes that opening the building as a concert venue without a casino licence will cause enormous financial losses. He decides to stop the concert.

Collet visits Lucio, an Inquisitor and devil hunter who has lived in seclusion since the woman's suicide. He provokes Lucio with an old rumour that Paganini is a servant of the devil. According to the story, Paganini murdered a woman during the three years between 1802 and 1805 and made a violin from her organs. This, Collet claims, is why Paganini can perform techniques beyond ordinary human ability.

Promising to show him proof, Collet takes Lucio to a tavern frequently visited by Paganini. Paganini plays the violin to comfort the people there in their difficult lives. The listeners become deeply absorbed in his music. Lucio takes their reaction as evidence of demonic power and begins following Paganini in search of further proof.

Charlotte approaches Paganini under the false name Christine. Paganini asks her to imitate a series of strange animal sounds. She follows his instructions and eventually begins to sing. Her voice gives Paganini an idea for a new composition, and the two agree to perform together at the opening concert.

Collet presents Charlotte with a ring, but she is distracted by thoughts of Paganini and the music they have created together.

The story returns to the trial held after Paganini’s death. The judge asks where Paganini’s body is. Achille explains that several ports refused to receive it. After discovering an island by chance, he placed his father’s body in a cave, where it has remained for four years.

Achille continues his account of his father's life. The women Paganini loved all left him, including Achille's mother. Achille remained with his father. The story then moves further back in time. Paganini's father, who had previously lived an idle life, brought home a violin when his son was five years old. He subjected the boy to harsh training and used his extraordinary talent to earn money. Lucio dismisses the story as irrelevant to the trial. He argues that Paganini even used a calculated scheme in his final will to ensure that his property passed to Achille.

The story returns to the events before Paganini’s death. Lucio gives Charlotte an object and tells her to use it to obtain evidence that Paganini is a devil. Its exact nature is not clearly shown.

Charlotte visits Paganini’s home but behaves awkwardly, claiming that she is merely nervous about the concert. When Lucio enters the house, she quickly hides the object she had placed there. Lucio confronts Paganini and pressures him to confess that he is a servant of the devil. Paganini replies that he is simply a man who loves music and that he is not a devil.

The opening concert finally takes place. Charlotte performs in a mask, but Collet and her father soon recognise her. After the concert, Collet confronts her at his home. Charlotte declares that she will end their engagement. Collet reveals that Charlotte’s father owes him a large debt and mocks her attempt to leave. He says that he now understands why his own father, a moneylender, used to lock debtors in an attic without even giving them water. He then imprisons Charlotte in the attic.

When Charlotte disappears, Paganini goes to confront Collet. He hears her singing from above. Paganini offers to repay approximately 200,000 francs through his performances. The sum includes her father’s debt, the casino investment, and compensation for the broken engagement. Collet accepts the proposal and begins promoting Paganini’s concerts. As Paganini’s popularity grows, ticket prices continue to rise. People wonder whether Paganini is truly a devil or merely a man using demonic rumours as a business strategy. The profits, however, go to Collet, who controls the performances.

Collet’s servant visits Lucio for confession. He reveals that Charlotte is being held in the attic and gives Lucio the key. Lucio releases her. Charlotte tells him that Paganini is not a devil and urges him to listen to Paganini’s music himself.

Collet later visits Lucio and asks whether he simply believed the servant’s confession. He says that Paganini will continue to perform and that Collet himself will take the money. Lucio replies that the Church will confiscate all money earned by a devil. Collet then reveals that priests from the Vatican are coming to arrest Paganini. He describes them as corrupt men who will act for money.

He also returns to the woman’s suicide seven years earlier. The person who denounced her as a servant of the devil was Collet’s father. A moneylender at the time, he achieved great financial success after the incident. Collet asks Lucio why he suspects the devil but never suspects the informer. He mocks Lucio for losing sleep over the woman’s suicide. He then produces the gun used in the incident, places it in Lucio’s hand, and tells him to take his own life if the guilt has become unbearable. Lucio is deeply shaken. He remembers the years of nightmares and thoughts of suicide and asks God what he is meant to do. In the end, he concludes that his calling to capture the devil has not changed.

Lucio tells Charlotte that Paganini will die if he meets the Vatican priests. He asks her to bring Paganini to him before they arrive. Charlotte urges Paganini to go with her, but he insists that he must perform and heads for the concert hall. Paganini’s health has already deteriorated rapidly. He says that he has become too weak to do anything else, but he can still play the violin.

Lucio finds Paganini and urges him to confess that he is a devil. If he admits it, Lucio says, he will be entitled to a formal Church trial. If the corrupt Vatican priests capture him first, he may be killed without receiving a proper hearing. Paganini shouts that if a man who knows nothing but music must be called a devil, then he is a devil. However, he refuses to sign the confession. Once the claim is recorded, he argues, his music will disappear from memory. A hundred years later, only the story that he was a devil will remain as accepted fact. He tears up the confession and begins his final performance.

The story returns to the ecclesiastical trial after Paganini’s death. Lucio says that he did not attend merely to claim that Paganini was a devil. He nevertheless argues that Paganini used his extraordinary talent to captivate and mislead people, and that such influence must be stopped. Achille argues that his father was not a devil but simply a man who loved music. The Church nevertheless refuses to permit the burial.

Thirty-six years after Paganini’s death, Achille again asks the Church for permission to bury his father. He offers to donate all the property left by Paganini to the Church in exchange for its approval. The judge accepts the persistent son’s request and briefly announces that Paganini may finally be buried.


REVIEW

Paganini takes considerable creative liberties with the life of Niccolò Paganini, but historical accuracy is clearly not its primary concern. Instead, the musical explores the long-standing legend that the violin virtuoso had made a pact with the devil, framing the story through the posthumous trial over his burial.

Musically, the production was one of the stronger recent Korean original musicals I have seen. Rather than relying heavily on familiar Paganini melodies, it adopts a rock-oriented score supported by powerful amplification and surprisingly clear sound. The performance opened with concert-level volume that immediately established the atmosphere, yet individual instruments and vocals remained surprisingly well defined throughout. Spoken dialogue occasionally felt louder than necessary, while the violin sometimes blended into the piano and band more than I expected, slightly softening its distinctive timbre.

The score was shared among several principal characters rather than centered on Paganini. The Latin words of Dies Irae appeared twice, foreshadowing judgment and tragedy. Charlotte de Bernier (샬롯 드 베르니에), played by Ahn Ri Na (안리나), provided an effective contrast to the rock-oriented score. During the casino concert she sang in a distinctly classical style, recalling the sound of a mezzo-soprano, and remained consistently stable throughout her many vocal numbers.

For a medium-sized theatre, the production employed a surprisingly large ensemble and energetic staging. A single dancer represented Paganini's inner self throughout the performance, culminating in a striking final sequence where the dancer twisted atop a two-level structure before silently passing the movement to Niccolò Paganini. Paganini then stepped forward and began a seven-minute performance of La Campanella, one of the production's most striking moments.

Hong Joo Chan (홍주찬) portrayed Niccolò Paganini (니콜로 파가니니) with youthful intensity. Although the role was not dominated by vocal numbers, he sang cleanly between the violin passages, and the extended performance of La Campanella felt more like a modern electric violin rock concert than a historical reconstruction. It also prompted an interesting thought. Techniques once regarded as almost supernatural in Paganini's time have gradually become part of the standard training of advanced violin students. Playing the notes themselves is no longer impossible; recreating Paganini's artistry and the astonishment he inspired remains a very different challenge. By combining rock arrangements, powerful amplification, and theatrical staging, the musical successfully recreated that sense of virtuoso spectacle for a modern audience.

The musical also struck an effective balance between original composition and Paganini's own music. Rather than constructing a jukebox musical from familiar violin repertoire, it limited direct quotations to iconic works such as La Campanella, selections from the 24 Caprices, and several recurring Paganini motifs. Newly composed songs drove the dramatic narrative, while Paganini responded to them through violin performance. For a musical centered on a composer-performer, this proved to be a particularly convincing structure.

Lee Seung-Jun (이승준) portrayed Collet Bonheur (콜랭 보네르) as a thoroughly calculating businessman whose manipulative personality dominated nearly every scene. His swaggering manner on stage made the character genuinely unpleasant, making it all the more surprising to see how calm and sincere he appeared during the curtain call. Kim Jong Goo (김종구) brought considerable vocal power to Lucio Amos (루치오 아모스), particularly in his confrontational duets with Collet, while Park Joo Hyuk (박주혁) provided a stable emotional center as Achille Paganini (아킬레 파가니니). Framing much of the story through narration, he guided the audience through his father's life with quiet restraint, and the brief exchange of glances between father and son near the end became one of the production's warmest moments.

The script, however, left a more mixed impression. Its central idea is compelling: a gifted musician repeatedly exploited by those around him, while society mistakes the victim for the source of corruption. This theme runs consistently from Paganini's childhood to his dealings with Collet and ultimately to the Church's refusal to bury him.

Several character motivations, however, become less convincing as the story progresses. Collet is consistently portrayed as a calculating manipulator motivated by profit, yet some of his later decisions appear to undermine his own financial interests. Lucio's character also shifts repeatedly—from uncompromising inquisitor to guilt-ridden priest, and finally to someone who argues that Paganini's true danger lay not in being a devil but in his extraordinary ability to captivate people. The final interpretation is an interesting one, but stronger groundwork earlier in the story would have made that transition feel more convincing.

Some plot threads are introduced in considerable detail but receive little or no resolution. These moments do not prevent the story from functioning, yet they occasionally weaken the dramatic momentum because they invite questions the narrative never fully answers.

Despite these reservations, Paganini remains an engaging production. Its music, orchestration, sound design, performances, and ambitious integration of live violin performance consistently held my attention. The production demonstrated that a musical about a violin virtuoso need not rely exclusively on familiar classical repertoire to succeed. With a tighter script and clearer dramatic links between several key motivations, it could become an even stronger work without requiring major structural changes.