14 | WEDNESDAY, JULY 31, 2019 THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION

Culture

This one’s for the hedonists.

All you party people should know

that the Al Hirschfeld Theater in New

York has been refurbished as an opu-

lent pleasure palace, wherein dec-

adence comes without hangovers.

That’s where the euphoric “Moulin

Rouge! The Musical” is playing amid a

shower of fireworks, confetti and glit-

tering 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 produc-

tion. It has side effects, for sure, includ-

ing the vertigo that comes from having

your remembrance of songs past tick-

led 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.

Or rather, it’s like the memory of all

those parties merged into one stream-

lined fantasy. The team behind “Moulin

Rouge” — which includes the brilliant

arranger and orchestrator Justin Le-

vine and the choreographer Sonya

Tayeh — knows that familiar music

opens the floodgates of recollection like

few other stimuli.

Though it is set in fin de siècle Paris,

“Moulin Rouge” uses as both its score

and its lingua franca roughly 70 songs,

most of them chart-toppers of the past

several decades. And since the major-

ity of them concern the extreme joys

and sorrows of being in love (or lust),

they are likely to have figured in the

soundtrack of your own romantic

history. These are numbers that many

of us fell in love to, made love to and

fell out of love to, and they’ve kept

playing in our heads ever since.

Mr. Luhrmann had the inspired

notion that such music is to our age

what the arias of grand opera were to

an earlier time. The movie “Moulin

Rouge” pumped a verismo-style,

gaslight-era plot — a hybrid of “La

Traviata” and “La Bohème” — full of

melodic anachronisms like “Your

Song,” “Lady Marmalade” and even

the title number from “The Sound of

Music.”

The stage version retains most of

these but has added a whole lot more,

many used only in snippets. (The

characters here sometimes communi-

cate in mash-up numbers through a

giddy chain of “name-that-tune”

lyrics.)

At the same time, Mr. Timbers’s

production, which features a stra-

tegically clichéd book by John Logan,

translates the shimmery illusions of

cinema into the grit and greasepaint of

live theater. It picks up on the out-

moded idea of show people as close kin

to panderers and prostitutes, empha-

sizing the transactional relationship

between live entertainers and their

audiences.

Thus, when you enter the Hirschfeld

you will immediately encounter varia-

tions on the idea of love for sale. Derek

McLane’s dazzling nightclub set of the

title — that’s the same Moulin Rouge

associated with Toulouse-Lautrec, and

yes, he’s a character here — is a gasp-

inspiring nest of valentine hearts,

cushioned nooks and outsize exotica,

illumined in shades of pink and red by

the lighting designer Justin Townsend.

Lissome men and women, wearing

little more than corsets and stockings,

stare down the audience. (A top-form

Catherine Zuber has dressed the cast

sumptuously, in clothes designed to

ravish.) Men in top hats and tails,

cigars clamped between their lips,

assess the human flesh on offer. And a

splendidly seedy master of ceremonies

greets us with flattering insults.

That’s Harold Zidler, played with

rouged cheeks, suspicious eyes and an

all-embracing leer by a marvelous Mr.

Burstein. “Welcome, you gorgeous

collection of reprobates and rascals,

artistes and arrivistes, soubrettes and

sodomites,” he says. “No matter your

sin, you are welcome here.”

In contrast, there’s our other host,

who says he’s summoning a cherished

chapter of his life for our delectation.

That’s the open-faced, virginal Chris-

tian (Mr. Tveit), newly arrived in Paris

from Lima, Ohio, who asks us to “think

back” and “try to remember your first

real love affair.”

The object of Christian’s adoration is

Satine, a nightclub chanteuse and

demimondaine, almost past her prime

and riddled with consumption. On-

screen, Nicole Kidman portrayed her

as a gossamer-spun apparition. Ms.

Olivo, in a performance that sends her

into the constellation of great musical

actresses, gives us a figure of palpable

flesh, who deploys a coquette’s arsenal

of wiles and illusions to conceal illness,

desperation and a hard-lived past.

When Ms. Olivo’s Satine, which has

acquired even greater depth and polish

since I saw this show in Boston a year

ago, sings “Diamonds Are Forever,”

“Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,”

“Material Girl” and “Single Ladies

(Put a Ring on It)” — all in one num-

ber — she’s a delicious compound of

artifice and ardor. Like the show itself,

she skillfully walks a tightrope be-

tween archness and sincerity, sophis-

tication and gee-whiz wonder, without

ever stumbling.

The wide-eyed Mr. Tveit covers the

“gee-whiz” part of the equation with

appealing exuberance and a gleaming

voice. He has been given two lively

sidekicks — the Argentine tango danc-

er Santiago (the vibrant Ricky Rojas)

and the painter and, uh, show-within-

the-show director Toulouse-Lautrec (a

charmingly melancholy Sahr Ngau-

jah).

As Christian’s romantic rival, the

Duke of Monroth, Tam Mutu swaggers

suavely and menacingly. He introduces

himself to Satine by singing (wouldn’t

you know) “Sympathy for the Devil.”

The stuff of radio-wallpaper has

been repurposed here, but it’s never

performed as karaoke throwaways.

When Ms. Olivo sings the Katy Perry

chart-topper “Firework” or Mr. Tveit

does Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep,” it’s

with an uncompromising, personal

passion.

Ms. Tayeh’s choreography — ex-

pertly performed by a delightful and

delighted polymorphous ensemble —

is a perpetual motion machine of often

bruising sensuality. Standard period

fare like the cancan (bien sûr) and La

Danse Apache is reinterpreted with

electric wit.

Mr. Rojas and a snarling Robyn

Hurder lead the sensational Act II

showstopper, an angry blend of Lady

Gaga’s “Bad Romance” and Britney

Spears’s “Toxic.” (Ms. Hurder is also

part of the fab quartet of divas — along

with Jacqueline B. Arnold, Holly James

and Jeigh Madjus — who give torrid

life to “Lady Marmalade.”)

When Mr. Burstein makes his jubi-

lant entrance at the top of the show,

you may find yourself thinking of

another insinuating M.C., from another

European nightclub, from another

Broadway musical. I mean, of course,

the immortal “Cabaret.”

But there’s an all-important differ-

ence. When the M.C. in “Cabaret”

(famously embodied by Joel Grey and,

later, Alan Cumming) promises that “in

here, life is beautiful,” he’s lying. Set in

Weimar Berlin, “Cabaret” is ultimately

a cautionary musical, finding the social

heedlessness in divine decadence.

In “Moulin Rouge,” life is beautiful,

in a way reality never is. All is permit-

ted, and forgiven, in the name of love.

Bohemian poverty is exquisitely pic-

turesque. Stardom is around the corner

for the gifted and hungry. And even

songs you thought you never wanted

to hear again pulse with irresistible

new sex appeal.

What this emporium of impure

temptations is really selling is pure

escapism. You may not believe in it all

by the next morning. But I swear you’ll

feel nothing like regret.

Nonstop party with passion playlist

THEATER REVIEW

‘Moulin Rouge’ onstage

evokes young love using

dozens of chart-toppers

BY BEN BRANTLEY

PHOTOGRAPHS BY SARA KRULWICH/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Clockwise from top: Karen Olivo as Satine and Aaron Tveit as Christian, newly arrived

in Paris from Lima, Ohio; Danny Burstein as a seedy, leering master of ceremonies in

the musical, directed by Alex Timbers; and Ms. Olivo aloft in the nightclub of the title.

The team behind this musical

knows that familiar music opens

the floodgates of recollection like

few other stimuli.

The producers of Woodstock 50, the

troubled anniversary festival, have se-

cured a last-minute deal to put on their

show — or at least a version of it — in

Maryland, after months of legal and per-

mit battles in upstate New York that had

left the event in grave doubt.

Woodstock 50 will now be at the Mer-

riweather Post Pavilion, an outdoor am-

phitheater in Columbia, Md., the

producers have confirmed. It will be

held from Aug. 16 to 18, almost exactly

50 years after the first Woodstock. But it

remains unclear what artists will be per-

forming. When the lineup was an-

nounced early this year, it was to include

Jay-Z, Miley Cyrus, Dead and Company,

John Fogerty, Santana and dozens of

others. None of them, however, have

been confirmed for the latest iteration of

the event.

For much of the year, Woodstock 50

has been the talk of the concert busi-

ness, mostly for the wrong reasons, as

its producers have faced obstacle after

obstacle, some seemingly self-imposed.

The festival’s producers — including

Michael Lang, one of the original part-

ners behind the festival in 1969 — have

battled with their partners and former

investor, the Japanese advertising con-

glomerate Dentsu, which withdrew its

support in April and has called them in-

competent. Producers lost two venues

in upstate New York after failing to ob-

tain permits; they suffered their latest

setback just this month when the event

was rejected — for a fourth time — by

the town of Vernon, N.Y.

With just three weeks before the show

was to start, much of the music industry

had given up on Woodstock 50.

But last Thursday it emerged that the

festival’s producers had made a deal to

save it.

“Woodstock 50 approached Merri-

weather about hosting their event here

in Columbia, Md.,” Seth Hurwitz, chair-

man of the music promoter I.M.P. and

operator of Merriweather Post Pavilion,

said in a statement. “The Woodstock

folks are working on securing the artists

now. If the bands come, we’ll produce

the show. We’re looking forward to get-

ting an update as soon as Woodstock 50

has one.”

Another concert, by the Smashing

Pumpkins and Noel Gallagher’s High

Flying Birds, has already been adver-

tised there on Aug. 17. Festival organ-

izers had no immediate comment.

The news of Woodstock 50’s move to

Maryland was first reported by Bloom-

berg.

Still, it is not clear who will play. Art-

ists’ contracts with Woodstock 50 were

tied to its originally planned venue, in

Watkins Glen, N.Y., and they may have a

right to refuse to play if the show is

moved. Merriweather Post Pavilion’s lo-

cation, close to Baltimore and Washing-

ton, may also conflict with artists’ tour-

ing schedules. The artists have already

been paid, and would probably be able to

keep those fees even if they did not per-

form; according to court filings, the fes-

tival paid $32 million to secure its first

lineup.

Producers were still negotiating with

artists’ agents late last week. Several of

those agents either declined to com-

ment or did not immediately respond to

requests seeking comment.

Merriweather Post Pavilion is owned

by the Downtown Columbia Arts and

Culture Commission, a nonprofit organi-

zation, and is one of the few independ-

ently run amphitheaters in the country.

Mr. Hurwitz also runs the 9:30 club and

the Anthem concert hall in Washington.

The original Woodstock festival, in

1969, was ejected from its planned loca-

tion just a few weeks before it was to

take place, but Lang made another last-

minute deal — to hold it on farmland in

Bethel, N.Y.

Woodstock 50 festival is saved

With just weeks to spare,

the event moves from New

York State to Maryland

BY BEN SISARIO

Michael Lang, an original partner in Woodstock in 1969, has faced many obstacles.

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