I’ve been a fan of the movie Moulin Rouge! since I was a child. I’ve been waiting for it to come to Broadway since I was a teenager. (I’m still waiting. I’m too broke to buy a ticket to the show, but that’s beside the point.) So now that Moulin Rouge! has hit Broadway with all the flair of Paris, I can’t help but cry over the beauty of the cast recording that has been released.
Maybe it’s because Moulin Rouge! is my favorite movie, or maybe there’s just something magical about this updated version of the beloved Baz Luhrmann movie, but the new cast recording brings modern songs into the iconic mash-ups of the film and gives a twist to the characters that we’ve already come to love.
“Your Song,” one of the most iconic parts of the movie, is more of a duet and has a bit of an acoustic twist to it, rather than the grandiose show of affection that Christian showed Satine in the film. For me, though, the moment that had me sobbing on my floor came from “Sympathy for the Duke.”
I tried to not look at the track list, wanting to be surprised by what was coming, because, again, this is one of my favorite movies, and I wanted to experience the changes in the track list without knowing. But then I was trying to figure something out, and I scrolled and, in doing so, found “Sympathy for the Duke.” Instantly, I knew it was a twist on “Sympathy for the Devil,” but I wasn’t ready for it to be a mash-up of songs from the Rolling Stones, and I cried. Yes, I cried over a song about the Duke in The Year of Our Lord 2019. If you HAD told me that, after watching Moulin Rouge! over and over again as a teenager, I would have laughed in your face, but hey, we evolve.
Toning down some of the more iconic songs from the film with an acoustic feel to them and then mixing them with big, in-your-face numbers, it seems as if, from the cast recording alone, Moulin Rouge! The Musical understands the beauty that is the movie and how the songs weave together to tell this tragic love story.
I do love that the musical has somehow found a way to mash-up “Royals” with “Truth Beauty Freedom Love,” but now we have an entirely new “Elephant Love Medley” to learn. Let me tell you, they somehow put “Torn” by Natalie Imbruglia in it, and listen, it’s a wild ride from start to finish.
You can listen to the cast recording here, but please remember: I started openly sobbing over the Rolling Stones mash-up for the Duke, and I hate the Duke. Be warned.
(image: screengrabbed from the official Moulin Rouge Twitter)
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