The Moulin Rouge

Night fell and we made our way to Montmartre ready to watch the prestigious Cabaret of Paris - The Moulin Rouge! Féerie was the theme of this show. We knew it would be a spectacular visual feast with 100 girls and boys wearing 1000 costumes of rhinestones, sequins and feathers doing the can-can. For those who aren't familiar, The Moulin Rouge is originally introduced as a seductive dance by courtesans who operated in the Paris red-light district in the 18th century. Eversince, it has evolved into a form of entertainment and has even found its way into Hollywood with movies like the Moulin Rouge! (directed by Baz Luhrmann) and popularised in music hits, Lady Marmalade.

With this in mind, we arrived at the theatre and immediately loved the windmill that features outside the theatre. A-hah, so that's where the windmill in the Moulin Rouge movie was inspired from!

Outside the Moulin Rouge.

We were shown to our table and were presented with a bottle of wine to accompany us for the evening. It was unfortunate that we were placed to the far right of the stage as it wasn't the best angle to watch the performance but nevertheless we were excited about just being there and settled right in. The cosy theater was dimly lit and decked out with red lamps. It was the perfect atmosphere to sit back and immerse yourself in the show.

We were not allowed to take any photos but just to give a taste of the performance, click here. One thing that did surprise me as soon as the show started was that the dancers performed semi-nude! It's probably something that most people knew about the Moulin Rouge, but for some reason I didn't! These topless, naturally beautiful performers (both guys and girls), draped with plumes of feathers who shimmered with thousands of sequins added to the seductive allure of the Moulin Rouge. The costumes were magnificent and were tastefully done. The whole performance ran like clockwork (as you would expect since it it was launched in 1999). We believe however, that there was a slight prop failure at one point when a carousel that lowered from the ceiling didn't quite go back up for much of the second part of the show. As we were sitting off to the side, it annoyingly obscured parts of the stage for us.

Lights flash, the glossy Kens and Barbies glittered, sang and performed acrobats which kept us entertained for the night. They certainly pulled every single card they had in the book as it was a circus bonanza! We saw jugglers, a mime artist, miniature ponies, clowns, magicians and even a live python! It is obvious that the performers on stage were multi-talented as all were able to sing beautifully, dance and do a triple back-flip!

At the end of the night, I was happy that we have watched the famous Parisian can-can in the even more famous Moulin Rouge. I was however, slightly disappointed by the end of the show when I discovered that behind all the glorious blinking lights, there wasn't any apparent story line. And I guess it made it all the harder as the whole show was performed in French (quite understandably). One fantastical scene rolled on to the next theme, without any apparent connection. Perhaps, that is simply how the performance is meant to be - an eye-popping, visual feast for the imagination, which the Moulin Rouge accomplished spectacularly!


For those who are keen on the performance, the current revue 'Féerie' is about to end in November 2012. There will be a new show called 'Flash' that is scheduled to launch just before Christmas 2012. Interesting...