Moulin Rouge Dinner Show in Paris

In the adorable ‘La chanson des fortifs’, Fréhel reflected on the passing of time and asked herself what had happened to things like the old songs of the popular artist Aristide Bruand, contemporary of the first era of the Moulin Rouge, who was immortalized, just like the legendary place in the posters of his friend Toulouse-Lautrec, the graphic reporter par excellence of this paradoxical and fascinating decadent period of the end of the century and the Belle Epoque.

Fréhel herself, the great start of the generation after Bruand, predicted the inevitable disappearance of all the components of that extraordinary Parisian era, whose atmosphere completely captivated Marcel Proust in an infinite book that contemplated, among other things, the birth of film, the first apotheosis of industrial design, the arrival of the automobile, sports and other forms of worship to speed, everything Japanese, theosophy, the avant-gardes, impressionist music and the aesthetic triumph of the Russian ballets by Diaghilev. Also, with the fascinating flora, wildlife and imaginary teratology suggested by the metro entrances designed by Grimard, the transformation of the city surface into a landscape full of terrible and magical accesses to the unknown, conformed the ideal scenario for an urban pataphysical and surrealist adventure.

Mentioning other elements, Fréhel’s song announced the inevitable disappearance of all of these things but, also, of all the heroes, objects and fashions that came after them, including of course her own, while she offered the consolation that even though time brings even the strongest and most solid constructions down, there would always be songs -Averroes, according to Borges, offered, decades later, a bigger consolation for the pain due to the essential impermanence of things, relying upon that “time, who strips the fortresses, enriches the verses”.

Despite everything, the legendary Moulin Rouge (http://www.moulinrouge.fr/index_gb.php#/histoire/) is still going today, 120 years after its opening, and it’s still the main responsible, together with the other cabarets in the Butte Montmartre district, of the attractive growth with forbidden fruit flavour of the district. Despite this, however, the expectancies created in 1891 by the construction of the Basilica of the Sacré Coeur foresaw a much more merciful attraction for this area of the north of Paris that would be so decisive in the history of contemporary art. Perhaps the perpetual tension between heaven and hell has never been staged with more elegance, beauty and precision.

In the 1960s it revitalized and reached the point of regaining all of its splendor as a music-hall temple. Few things are comparable as dining in the Moulin Rouge (five different menus to choose from with champagne, of course) while you attend one of the best cabaret shows in the world, and a can-can show included, of course.

Paul Oilzum

This would mean occupying a seat in one of the most fabulously evocative interiors of the Belle Epoque in a city that felt, during that period of time, the centre of the world. When you rent apartments in Paris few plans will be more seductively appealing.

Contact Me 

Translated by: aleixgwilliam
Contact Me