Moulin Rouge! The Musical
Opening Night: July 25, 2019
Theater: Al Hirschfeld Theatre
Website: moulinrougemusical.com
Enter a world of splendor and romance, of eye-popping excess, of glitz, grandeur and glory! A world where Bohemians and aristocrats rub elbows and revel in electrifying enchantment. Pop the champagne and prepare for the spectacular spectacular… Welcome to Moulin Rouge! The Musical! Baz Luhrmann’s revolutionary film comes to life onstage, remixed in a new musical mash-up extravaganza. A theatrical celebration of truth, beauty, freedom and — above all — love, Moulin Rouge! is more than a musical; it is a state of mind.
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July 25, 2019
This one’s for the hedonists. All you party people should know that the Al Hirschfeld Theater has been refurbished as an opulent pleasure palace, wherein decadence comes without hangovers. That’s where the euphoric “Moulin Rouge! The Musical” opened on Thursday night in a shower of fireworks, confetti and glittering fragments of what feels like every pop hit ever written. Inspired by the 2001 Baz Luhrmann film and directed with wicked savvy by Alex Timbers, this “Moulin Rouge” is a cloud-surfing, natural high of a production. It has side effects, for sure, including the vertigo that comes from having your remembrance of songs past tickled silly and the temporary blockage of any allergies to jukebox musicals. But for its plump, sleek two-and-a-half hours of stage time, “Moulin Rouge” — which stars a knockout Karen Olivo, with Aaron Tveit and Danny Burstein doing their best Broadway work to date — has the febrile energy you may associate with the wilder parties of your youth, when gaudy nights seemed to stretch into infinity.
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July 25, 2019
It was only a matter of time before “Moulin Rouge!” — Baz Luhrmann’s hyperactive and overstuffed 2001 movie, which was famously built upon bits and pieces of 19th century operatic tragedy and 20th-century pop standards — came to Broadway. Despite an ornate and environmental visual design depicting a turn-of-the-century Parisian nightclub, first-rate leading actors (including Tony winner Karen Olivo, Aaron Tveit and Danny Burstein) and an updated/upgraded jukebox of hit singles to play around with, “Moulin Rouge!” is not unlike earlier botched, inherently problematic attempts at bringing visually distinct movie musicals to the stage. Think “The Wizard of Oz” and “Singin’ in the Rain.”
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July 25, 2019
Even the most wholly original works of art can, in the service of story or character or heart, summon the stray memory, the whispery chill of déjà vu. They’ll switch on the bittersweet recall of better times or drip-drop echoey little splashes of the worst. Most, though, remember to turn the damn spigot off.
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July 25, 2019
Moulin Rouge! was Baz Luhrmann at his most brashly baroque, a shameless pop-cultural magpie molding equal parts kitsch, cool and cliché into a rhapsodic dream. The giddy 2001 screen collision of soaring romance and dazzling artifice helped resuscitate the movie musical. Stage director Alex Timbers and the creative team on this delirious theatrical reinvention take those Luhrmann impulses and run with them, crafting a gaudy and gorgeous jukebox pastiche in which eye-popping spectacle, off-the-charts energy and almost non-stop musical mashups provide the plush padding for a featherweight plot. The show is A LOT, in every sense, both intoxicating and exhausting in its unrelenting visual and sonic assault. But it virtually defies you not to be entertained.
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July 25, 2019
If they didn’t do “Lady Marmalade,” I was going to storm the stage. Happily, director Alex Timbers and writer John Logan were savvy enough to open their Broadway adaptation of “Moulin Rouge!” with that crowd-pleasing tune, written by Kenny Noland and Robert Crewe and immortalized by the great Patti LaBelle. But does that mean this stunning live version blots out all fond memories of Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 movie starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor? No way. But rather than ding the show for the movie splendors it can’t replicate (those soaring views of Paris rooftops! that infinite army of dancers!), let’s revel in what Broadway actually can do for a beloved musical property: bring it to life. And shall we start with those half-naked lady sword-swallowers?
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