Moulin Rouge: Sails fall off Paris’s famous cabaret club overnight
The iconic windmill atop the world-renowned Moulin Rouge cabaret club in Paris has been stripped of its sails, which plummeted onto the street below in the early morning hours. The exact reason for the collapse remains unclear, according to authorities.
Fortunately, no injuries were reported, although the first three letters of the “Moulin Rouge” sign also detached. Since its inception in 1889, the Moulin Rouge has been a staple of Parisian nightlife and is celebrated as the birthplace of the can-can dance.
This incident occurs mere months before Paris is set to host the Olympics. Initial social media posts depicted the fallen sails, some with bent blades, strewn across the street. As a safety precaution, the structure has been secured to the cabaret’s facade and concealed with green tarpaulin.
Despite regular inspections by the cabaret’s technical teams, no issues were detected with the windmill mechanism leading up to the event. Moulin Rouge director Jean-Victor Clerico stated that foul play is not suspected, attributing the incident to a technical malfunction.
Apart from this incident, the only significant mishap in the landmark’s history was a fire during renovations in 1915, which razed the original Moulin Rouge to the ground.
The cabaret, with its distinctive red windmill blades, is located in the northern Paris district of Pigalle and is one of the most visited landmarks in the city. It opened its doors in October 1889 at the foot of the Montmartre hill.
It quickly became synonymous with crazy Parisian nights and a stop to look at its façade or catch a show inside is a must-do on many tourists’ lists of things to do in the French capital.
On Thursday morning, some Parisians came to see what had happened.
Speaking to Le Parisien newspaper, local resident and head waiter at the Moulin Rouge in the 1980s, André Duval, said: “Paris without its windmill is like Paris without its Eiffel Tower”.
Another resident, Raphaël, said it was “quite disturbing” to see the windmill without the sails, but the main thing was that there had been no injuries.
In the 1890s, French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec became a regular visitor to the club and is credited for immortalising the Moulin Rouge during the period known as “La Belle Époque” – the years from the late 19th Century to the outbreak of World War One.
His advertisement posters for the cabaret featured the can-can dancers and became some of his most recognizable work.
Focusing on the decadence of Parisian society at the time, Toulouse-Lautrec helped enshrine the cabaret’s reputation as the ultimate burlesque palace of the 19th century.
A century later, it was the musical romantic drama film by Baz Luhrmann – Moulin Rouge! – starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor took the story of the cabaret to a whole new audience.
The Moulin Rouge became famous for it’s can-can dance and topless dancers, with an early edition of the Oxford Companion to Music calling the can-can “a boisterous and latterly indecorous dance, exploited in Paris for the benefit of such British and American tourists as will pay well to be shocked”.
Today some of the dancers continue to perform topless and the costumes are known to be somewhat risqué. The Moulin Rouge website advertises the experience as appropriate for families with children from six years old, but warns that some shows include passages with nudity.
The cabaret is due to celebrate its 135th anniversary on 6 October.
