Moulin Rouge!, That Old Paris Courtesan, Looks Lovelier Than Ever

A giant, bedazzled elephant peers down onto designer Derek McLane as he surveys his set for the highly anticipated Broadway adaptation of Moulin Rouge!, Baz Luhrmann’s dazzling 2001 pop-opera film. Opposite the pachyderm, the eponymous red windmill spins lazily, while in between, a massive heart portal frames the stage in seemingly infinite, ornately latticed layers. The scene is an assault of scarlet and gold that has transformed the Al Hirschfeld Theatre into fin de siècle Paris’s most notorious den of iniquity.

“There’s honestly so much,” McLane says approvingly. But he wants more: more sconces, more drapes—“to make it look a little more elegant”—though every available inch of the theater appeared to already be smothered in myriad varietals of red velvet and satin.