Moulin Rouge
In the Pigalle district at the foot of Montmartre, the first thing you notice is a giant red windmill lit up against the night — it has never ground a grain of wheat; it is the sign. The Moulin Rouge was founded on 6 October 1889 by the Catalan entrepreneur Joseph Oller and his partner Charles Zidler, on Boulevard de Clichy in Paris's 18th arrondissement, on the site of an earlier dance hall called the Reine Blanche. The rooftop windmill, designed by artist Adolphe Willette, made this the first building in Paris to be fully lit by electricity. The venue is best known for the French cancan, and draws roughly 600,000 visitors a year — its style and name have been copied by cabarets around the world ever since. Step inside: this Belle Époque pleasure palace still holds corners that most visitors walk straight past without a second glance.
France · 3 The overlooked corners inside
The overlooked corners inside
La Machine du Moulin Rouge
The building next door to the Moulin Rouge used to be called La Locomotive, and it is another legendary address in the history of Parisian nightlife. From the 1960s onward it hosted The Who, The Kinks, and David Bowie, earning a reputation as the city's essential rock venue. After closing in October 2009 following a financial dispute, the Moulin Rouge's parent company — the Société du Bal du Moulin Rouge — took it over and relaunched it in January 2010 as La Machine du Moulin Rouge: same address at number 90, same walls, forty years of stages reinvented.
Sources: wikidata.org · fr.wikipedia.org · lamachinedumoulinrouge.com
Bal des Quat'z'Arts
In 1893, the Moulin Rouge hosted the Bal des Quat'z'Arts — the annual masquerade ball thrown by Paris's fine-arts students — and it ended in scandal. A woman in the parade appeared dressed, or rather undressed, as Cleopatra: fully nude, attended by a retinue of equally unclothed young women. In an era when respectable ladies wore gloves to cover their hands and kept their hair hidden beneath hats and veils at all times, the sight was enough to shock the whole city. That evening made plain what the Moulin Rouge was beyond a cancan venue: the most daring stage in Belle Époque Paris for testing the limits of public propriety.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
Moulin Rouge! (the film and musical)
Most people today know the name Moulin Rouge not from the stage but from a film. Director Baz Luhrmann made this cabaret the centrepiece of his 2001 movie Moulin Rouge!, then later transferred it to the stage as Moulin Rouge! The Musical, with a book by John Logan. A nineteenth-century Parisian pleasure house was reborn as a global pop-culture landmark.
Sources: fr.wikipedia.org
FAQ
What overlooked corners are worth seeing inside Moulin Rouge?
La Machine du Moulin Rouge, Bal des Quat'z'Arts, Moulin Rouge! (the film and musical) and more — 3 spots in all, each with sources and a guide in your language to read or listen to on the spot.
Is the Moulin Rouge guide free?
All 3 guides are free.