Review: Moulin Rouge! Musikaali
Moulin Rouge, a blast of hit songs and a great experience
Helsinki City Theatre’s Moulin Rouge musical offers visual candy, startlingly wonderful dances, skilful singing and familiar songs – in short, an experience.
The City Theatre’s Moulin Rouge is a pan-Nordic production. A similar implementation has been seen earlier than Helsinki in Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm. For the City Theatre, the performance had been slightly modified, because the stage in Helsinki is clearly larger than in other performance theatres. For example, there are more performers in Helsinki than others. That is in Helsinki’s interest, because it also made the performance more spectacular.
The musical Moulin Rouge is based on the film of the same name, which premiered in 2001.
Plot The plot of Moulin Rouge is simple. A poor boy comes to Paris and gets to know poor artists. Together they plan a revue that will be offered at the Moulin Rouge. There, the poor boy Christian falls in love with the star of the revue, Satine. Since the Moulin Rouge is in financial trouble, Harold Zidler, who is in charge of the revue, wants Satine to charm the rich duke so that he can become the revue’s financier. Satine becomes the Duke’s mistress, and the Duke not only finances the revue, but buys the Moulin Rouge and begins to tyrannize everything. Satine is forced to choose: take the castle from the Duke or win over her and Christian’s love.
Good staffing
In the film, Nicole Kidman played Satine, a Parisian cabaret performer and courtesan. In Helsinki, the role will be played by Jennie Storbacka, who was seen in e.g. Priscilla and Miss Saigon at the City Theatre.
Christian, a poor songwriter who moved from the USA, is played by Martti Manninen – and he does it well. His singing is effortless, his voice fits perfectly with the role of the boy next door, Christian. Martti Manninen is a really credible Christian. He even overshadows Jennie Storbacka.
Risto Kaskilahti gets to show his talent as the guy in charge of the Moulin Rouge revue and struggling with financial challenges, who also has a heart.
The tyrannizing duke is played by the skilled Joel Mäkinen.
Matti Leino fits well into the role of the Argentinean, laid-back Santiago.
Of the 30-member cast of actors and dancers, I would also like to highlight Laura Allonen, who plays Nini, Antti Lang, who plays Lautric, and Raili Raitala, who plays Arabia, who is also another option for the role of Satine. In addition to her acting skills, Raili Raitala is an excellent singer and dancer.
The director of the musical, Anders Albien from Sweden, has been able to choose a good cast for different roles.
Spectacular costumes, masks and wigs
Full marks should be given to Astrid Lynge Ottosen, who is responsible for the costume design. The City Theatre’s costume department has been busy with more than 100 costumes. One cancan skirt has 64 meters of fabric crumpled. Corsets, fishnet stockings and shoes inspired by the 1800s complete the visual look.
The masks emphasize the role of each performer in just the right way. The dancers’ curly wigs are in a class of their own.
What about the music?
As I told you at the beginning, the musical is full of hit songs, there are about 70 of them! In the performance, you can hear songs made familiar by Adele, Lady Gaga, Freddie Mercury, Rihanna and Pink, among others, but also older, familiar songs such as Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend, Diamonds Are Forever, L’Amour Est Oiseaux from the opera Carmen etc.
The performance begins with a real musical blast, thanks to which the audience is drawn into the colorful and fast-paced action of the cabaret.
Some of the songs have been translated into Finnish. In my opinion, Paavo Leppäkoski has succeeded well in his Finnish translation project, because I didn’t even think about the original lyrics of the translated songs.
In Finland, the chief conductor is Eeva Kontu. At the premiere, the orchestra was conducted by Ville Myllykoski.
Bottom line
I fully enjoyed the City Theatre’s Moulin Rouge, its visuals, talented performers, dances, costumes and music.
I had been waiting for this performance. If you expect something, you often have to be disappointed in some way. Now I didn’t have that feeling.
The price of adult tickets (adults 92 e, students 46 e, pensioners 89 e, box with a visual impairment 22 e) may seem high, but if you think about all the work that has been done for the performance, the number of performers, etc. And what kind of experience it produces, the sum doesn’t seem so big. After all, a festival ticket costs a lot, even more than a musical ticket.
Before the premiere, which was on 29.8.2024, 80000 tickets had already been sold. Autumn is almost completely sold. The spring shows are already on sale. The performances will continue until 10.5.2025. All you have to do is book tickets.
The audience at the premiere was on fire, and I’m not surprised at all.
Review in the Naiselo blog.