Places, Everyone!…Venue #6/25: The Moulin Rouge in Paris, France

There are many live performance venues from around the world that are products of their time. One of the most famous examples of this is the French nightclub and cabaret known as The Moulin Rouge in Paris, France. The Moulin Rouge opened in 1889 during a period in French history that has come to be known as La Belle Epoque or The Beautiful Era. La Belle Epoque was a period of time that existed from the end of the Napoleonic Wars in the mid/late 1800s to the start of WWI in 1914. It was an era marked by peace, prosperity and great innovations in the Arts and Sciences. Artists such as Matisse, Monet, Renoir, Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec and Rodin all flourished. Art Nouveau became the prominent architectural style used in the construction of new buildings and new public spaces. Venues such as the Paris Opera House hosted composers such as Stravinsky, Debussy, Ravel and Richard Strauss II. In science, Marie Curie and Louis Pasteur were winning Nobel Prizes for their groundbreaking work on how germs and bacteria inhibited good health and how radiation worked. The Eiffel Tower was constructed to act as the symbol of the great World’s Fair in 1889. With the World’s Fair set to open amid a backdrop of cultural growth and economic prosperity, a greater number of Parisians were enjoying a higher quality of life. This meant that not only were cultural events being aimed at the ultra rich, as had always been the case in the past, but now, doors to the most prestigious spaces were opening for the nouveaux riches as well. Recognizing that there was money to be spent and more people doing the spending, businessmen Charles Zidler and Joseph Oller decided to open a series of entertainment venues in the downtown core. One such cabaret was called the Olympia, but the most famous of their venues became known as the Moulin Rouge.

The Moulin Rouge was built in an area of Paris known as Montmartre. The cabaret, which is still in operation to this very day, was decorated in red and crowned with a red windmill on its roof. The story behind the symbolism of the windmill in French culture is worth exploring as it will shed a lot of light on why the Moulin Rouge was built in the first place and what type of entertainment allowed it to succeed and survive. The story goes that prior to the growth of Paris in terms of urbanization, much of the land that existed outside of the city core was used for farming. Windmills were used by farmers as a source of cheap energy to power the machinery that turned wheat into flour for bread. In the early 1800s, as the Franco-Prussian War was ongoing, Russian Cossacks approached Paris by attacking through Montmartre. A family named Debray owned one of the farms that found itself on the front lines of the advancing Cossack army. In the battles that followed, all but one of the Debray brothers were killed. After the war ended, the sole surviving brother decided that he could not successfully run the large family farm on his own. So instead, he sold off much of the land but kept the area near where his home and the family windmill stood. In order to make some money, he decided to renovate the building which housed the windmill.  He turned that new space into a public house/pub or guinguette, as the French called it. Other farmers noted the success that the last Debray standing had with his windmill-inspired guinguette and started to emulate him. In doing so, the conversion of windmills into dance hall style drinking establishments became a trend that helped many farmers survive the transition from an agrarian-based economy to one that was more industrialized and mechanized. Thus, when Joseph Oller and Charles Zidler were still in the planning stages for their new Parisian cabaret, they thought their establishment would be better received if they could incorporate a historical connection to the area’s past in the design of their building. So, they built a non-functional but historically symbolic red windmill on the top of their roof. The name “Moulin Rouge” translates to the “Red Mill” in English.

The official account of how the Moulin Rouge came to be decorated as it is states that the colour red symbolizes the blood spilled by the brothers Debray and the other farmers who gave their lives defending French soil from the Cossacks. However, there is another, less polite reason for the Moulin Rouge to be bathed in red. If you are familiar with the song “Roxanne” by The Police (You can read a post about it here), then you will be able to recall that it is a song about a French prostitute named Roxanne that is sung by a man who wants her to not turn on the red light announcing that she is “open for business”, as it were. Areas of major cities where organized prostitution exists have, for many years, been known as “red light districts”. Not that I would know from firsthand experience, but the idea is that the turning on of a red light outside of a brothel or other such building was meant to indicate that the women inside were ready to receive gentlemen callers or customers, if we were being honest about it all. This is not to say that because the Moulin Rouge was decorated mainly in red that it functioned as a high class brothel. However, the cabaret did become famous for the scantily clad nature of many of its female dancers. One of the most famous dances in history, the can-can, was born within the walls of The Moulin Rouge. (You can read a post about that here). The high kicking nature of the can-can was such that the bare legs, bottoms and other such areas of the dancer’s bodies were often on full display for the customers who paid exorbitant sums of money for such salacious entertainment. In fact, the famous French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec exchanged his services as a painter to create a series of iconic posters that advertised the temptations that awaited those who paid to enter the Moulin Rouge. In return for his paintings/posters, Toulouse-Lautrec was said to have been given his drinks and meals for free, along with the occasional companionship of one of the sultry Moulin Rouge dancers. For quite some time during the first half of the 1900s, many of the most famous and highest paid French female performers were dancers from the Moulin Rouge. The dancer Jane Avril was one who was immortalized in many of the posters created by Toulouse-Lautrec.

While the Moulin Rouge was opened in 1889 to coincide with the World’s Fair, the original building was destroyed in a fire and has been rebuilt and renovated several times since. The building that houses the Moulin Rouge today still sits on the exact same spot and welcomes paying customers through its doors for cabaret dance shows that feature scantily clad dancers who, if the scene calls for it, will doff their costumes. That this style of show still exists at a nightclub that caters mostly to tourists these days has caught some patrons off guard. Many who pay hundreds of Euros per ticket for a chance to enjoy champagne and a good meal while watching a show do so with visions of the Baz Luhrmann version of the Moulin Rouge in their heads. As you may recall, the 2001 Academy Award-winning movie Moulin Rouge starred Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor. That movie capped off a trilogy of movies by Luhrmann (Strictly Ballroom and Romeo and Juliet being the other two) in which Luhrmann used modern song lyrics as regular dialogue to help tell his story. The movie Moulin Rouge was a sexy affair, but it did not contain the nudity for which the real life Moulin Rouge is famous. Thus, if you have never been to Paris and plan to go one day in hopes of attending a show at the Moulin Rouge, do so with the knowledge that there will be strong, healthy bodies revealing themselves while you sip your champagne. Just sayin’!

Not all iconic music venues are large concert venues. The Moulin Rouge is an intimate cabaret that mostly features dinner theatre style entertainment. A few A-list performers such as Elton John, Frank Sinatra and Madonna have given solo performances from the stage of the Moulin Rouge, but those types of concerts have been the exception rather than the rule. For the most part, if you were to ever darken the red doors of the Moulin Rouge, you would be welcomed into a space crammed tightly with dinner tables, most of which are positioned with good visual access to the stage. With the stage lights lit and so many bodies on stage and in the seats, it can get warm inside of the Moulin Rouge. Not surprisingly, it can seem loud at times as well, depending on what is transpiring on stage. But yet, the allure of the Moulin Rouge and the sexualized energy it contains continues to draw in record crowds a full century after the guinguette known as the Red Mill first opened its doors. I guess that Charles Zidler and Joseph Oller were correct in their prediction that showcasing healthy bodies in the City of Light was a winning financial formula. And while the era known as La Belle Époque has long since come and gone, the continued success of the Moulin Rouge proves that some things in our society never seem to change. 

The link to the official website for the Moulin Rouge nightclub in Paris, France, can be found here.

The link to the video for the trailer for the film Moulin Rouge can be found here.         

The link to a short video that shows you what to expect if you were to visit The Moulin Rouge can be found here.

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