Ooh la la!

Let's make one thing clear, mes chers amis:

Moulin Rouge -- The Ballet has nothing to do with the 2001 movie musical starring Nicole Kidman.

The soon-to-open production by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet has its own plot, its own characters and a French classical score, not a pop soundtrack.

The only thing it has in common with the movie is its setting in the legendary Paris cabaret topped by a red moulin (windmill).

The club, which is still in operation, was made famous by the paintings of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and by its gaudy entertainers, particularly saucy cancan girls. Both RWB and the moviemakers had to obtain permission to use the closely guarded Moulin Rouge trademark.

The ballet, choreographed by Winnipeg's Jorden Morris, will have its world premiere in Minneapolis on Oct. 17, then come high-kicking into the Centennial Concert Hall, Oct. 21-25.

It's been created on a frugal $500,000 budget that pales in comparison to the movie's estimated $52-million price tag.

The local set and costume designers who have been immersed in the project for months know the visually spectacular movie will influence audience expectations.

"It's a little bit inevitable," says set designer Andrew Beck. But he and costume co-designers Anne Armit and Shannon Lovelace say the ballet, set in the 1890s, will have a stronger feel of historical authenticity. That, with the use of classical music, will "clear their minds of the movie pretty quickly," Beck predicts.

The designers may have a baguette budget, but they've shown éclair ingenuity. When authentic beaver-fur top hats priced out at an impossible $600 to $900 each, Armit bought theatrical ones and covered them with stretch velvet to achieve the same look at $180 each.

To dress up cabaret chairs and tables with "wrought iron" curlicues, Beck bought cheap rubber doormats that are made to look like wrought iron, cut them up and glued them to the furniture pieces.

Beck has many years' experience as a scenic painter. He was co-designer on RWB's Peter Pan, but this is only his second project as solo designer.

Because RWB tours so widely, he says, the $160,000 worth of sets and props must be compact, durable, easy to set up for a small crew, and adaptable to theatres much smaller than the concert hall. Not all the set elements will be used in small halls.

Beck got the key idea for Moulin Rouge's sets from working on the Aboriginal Achievement Awards' set seven years ago. It used large, lightweight set components made of Vivak, a plastic that can be heated and "vaccuformed" into three-dimensional shapes.

Most of the architectural pieces for Moulin Rouge, including a bridge, the 26-foot windmill and a tower with a spiral staircase inside it, have been constructed from Vivak "stonework" on bent-steel frames. The plastic is clear, like Plexiglas but lighter, and safer because it's less prone to shatter.

The "stonework" has been painted in watercolour-like hues. It can be lit so it glows with colour, or appears transparent.

When the opening curtain goes up, we'll see a huge, 26 x 60-foot scrim painted with a street scene centred on the cabaret. Currently laid out on the floor of the RWB shop, the scrim looks solid but is actually full of tiny holes. Lighting will make it seem to dissolve, creating a cinematic effect as we "enter" the scene. It will then "fly" out, and later reappear.

A key challenge of creating the show's 70 costumes, on a budget of $135,000, is that true-to-life 1890s-style garments are too heavy and restrictive for ballet. As the RWB's longtime head of wardrobe, Armit sees how dancers today are pulling off far more strenuous feats than in the past.

"It gets harder and harder to get the costumes to work with the demands of the choreography," she says.

Armit had to alter one costume for La Goulue, who is based on the real-life Moulin Rouge star, by inserting pieces of Spandex into the sides of her corset to give the dancer more breathing room.

The female dancers were surprised to discover that Armit and Lovelace weren't using a shortcut to avoid lace-up corsets. Although the ultra-slim gals won't need "knee in the back" lace-tightening, the boned corsets really do have to be tightened and tied.

As of last week, it was still being discussed whether the cancan dancers can wear black stockings, garters and pointe shoes, or whether it's not feasible because quick-changing to and from that look would take too long.

Citing the fact that RWB's Romeo and Juliet costumes have been used for 28 years, Armit says certain fabrics, like netting, had to be ruled out because they wouldn't last.

She says she's not dirtying or distressing any fabrics to simulate the grittiness of the era or the poverty of some characters.

"Give us a few years on the road!" she jokes.

alison.mayes@freepress.mb.ca

Moulin

madness

The sets for RWB's Moulin Rouge were built by five carpenters who worked for four months, plus five painters for two and a half months. The welding and grinding of the steel framing went on for eight hours a day for four months.

Twenty-six people have been working since July to cut, stitch, hand-dye, paint, bead, trim and fit 70 costumes, from sexy tango dresses and lavish gowns to lacy laundrettes' bloomers and brocade waiters' vests. Some of the men's costumes are being expertly tailored at the Stratford Festival.

The designers say the greatest challenge has been the layered taffeta skirts for the six cancan girls. The ruffled hems used a total of 3,850 metres of fabric. The designers worked out a mathematical plan "like a sudoku" to ensure that the same colour of ruffle never appears at the same level on any two skirts.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition October 6, 2009 C1