Le Moulin Rouges

The Moulin Rouge opened its doors on 6 October 1889, the same year the Eiffel Tower was unveiled for the Universal Exhibition. It was created by two shrewd entertainment entrepreneurs: Joseph Oller, a Spanish-born impresario who also owned the Paris Olympia concert hall, and Charles Zidler, a French showman with a keen instinct for public taste. They chose a site at the foot of the Montmartre hill in the 18th arrondissement, in the lively and slightly disreputable district of Pigalle, and converted a run-down dance hall into something unlike anything Paris had seen. The intention was deliberate: to attract wealthy and fashionable Parisians by giving them a taste of the bohemian working-class neighbourhood of Montmartre, which was then seen as excitingly raffish and slightly dangerous. The founders nicknamed the venture "the First Palace of Women," and designed a spectacular space with mirrored walls, crystal chandeliers, a vast dance floor, and a garden out the back dominated by a giant mechanical elephant left over from the World's Fair. It was one of the first buildings in Paris to be illuminated by electric light, its glowing red façade visible from across the Place Blanche.

2. What was the can-can, and how did it make the Moulin Rouge famous?

The dance most associated with the Moulin Rouge had its roots earlier in the 19th century, evolving from a lively partner dance called the quadrille. By the time the Moulin Rouge opened, it had transformed into something far more provocative: a high-energy, high-kicking display performed by lines of women who raised their skirts and executed leaping splits, all at a furious pace. The dance was considered genuinely shocking by respectable Parisian society, yet that was precisely its appeal. The star of the early years was Louise Weber, known as La Goulue — "the Glutton" — a ferociously entertaining dancer who would kick the top hats off customers' heads and steal their drinks as she swept past their tables. Her successor Jane Avril was her opposite in style: delicate, precise, and melancholic, she attracted a different kind of devotion. Both women became legends of the Belle Époque, and the can-can became the signature of the Moulin Rouge, spreading its fame across Europe and eventually the world.

3. How did Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec shape the image of the Moulin Rouge?

From the moment the Moulin Rouge opened, the painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec became one of its most devoted habitués. Born into an aristocratic family but physically marked by a bone disease that left him with stunted legs, Toulouse-Lautrec found in the cabaret world a place where he belonged. He sketched, painted, and observed the dancers, performers, and customers with an unflinching eye. In 1891, the manager Charles Zidler commissioned him to design a poster to replace a blander earlier one, and the result — Moulin Rouge: La Goulue — was an immediate sensation. Three thousand copies were pasted across Paris, their bold flat colours and Japanese-influenced silhouettes transforming the art of the poster overnight. Toulouse-Lautrec went on to create dozens of paintings and prints depicting the Moulin Rouge, its dancers, and the atmosphere of Montmartre. His work gave the cabaret a cultural identity that went far beyond entertainment, making it a subject of art history, and it remains the visual language through which most people still picture the Belle Époque.

4. What happened to the Moulin Rouge in the early 20th century?

The grand era of the founding years did not last unchanged. By the early 1900s, the wild balls that had defined the cabaret's first decade were fading from fashion, with the last ball held in 1902. The venue reinvented itself as a concert theatre and then as a home for operetta and revue. A more respectable and theatrical Moulin Rouge emerged under a series of different managers. Then, in 1915, a catastrophic fire swept through the building, destroying the auditorium and ballroom entirely, leaving only the façade and part of the stage standing. The Moulin Rouge rebuilt and reopened in 1921, and the great singer-dancer-actress Mistinguett — already known as the Queen of the Music Hall — became its defining figure of the interwar years, starring in spectacular revues and serving as co-director of the theatre. During the German occupation of Paris in the Second World War, the Moulin Rouge remained open and was frequented by German officers and soldiers. A rare moment of brightness came shortly before the Liberation in 1944, when the young singer Édith Piaf performed there alongside an unknown newcomer named Yves Montand.

5. How did the Moulin Rouge become the institution it is today?

The transformation of the Moulin Rouge from a cabaret notorious for scandal into an internationally celebrated cultural institution happened gradually across the second half of the 20th century. A major renovation in 1951 modernised the auditorium. In 1957 a choreographer known as Doris Haug founded the Doriss Girls dance troupe, which became the backbone of the modern shows, and established the tradition that all revue titles begin with the letter F — a superstition that has held ever since, through productions named Frou-Frou, Frisson, Fascination, and Féérie. The Moulin Rouge became a magnet for international stars: Lena Horne, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and Ray Charles all performed there. The 1952 John Huston film Moulin Rouge, and later Baz Luhrmann's 2001 film of the same name, brought its legend to global audiences who had never been to Paris. Today the building on the Boulevard de Clichy, with its famous red windmill rotating above the entrance, receives nearly 600,000 visitors a year and remains one of the most recognised landmarks in France.