Alinta Chidzey is a source of shapeshifting power. As Satine in the Tony Award-winning Moulin Rouge! The Musical, she descends from the ceiling in a wave of glittery splendour. She retreats to a boudoir adorned with velvet and neon to tend to her private grief. Today, she's morphed into a beguiling performer, at the scene of a special Vogue Australia shoot. She's wearing Schiaparelli. The uniform of beguiling performers everywhere: all black, head-to-toe. She tilts her hat, gloved hand on her waist. Her co-star Des Flanagan, grins broadly, watching from the wings. He cheers with encouragement when the Lady Ms take the stage. The new Beyoncé comes on. Ruva Ngwenya – or La Chocolat – shimmies in a Valentino gown. Peals of delighted laughter.
When meets the Australian cast of one cloudy spring morning at Sydney's historic Capitol Theatre, they've had nearly 300 chances to perform together. That's 300 different ways of transforming Baz Luhrmann's cult 2001 film in which a plucky courtesan (Satine) and star-crossed poet (Christian) find – and lose – each other in Belle Époque Paris into a musical worthy of 2022. It's a moment in which the movie's famous mantra – truth, beauty, freedom, love – feels less like a guiding philosophy of struggling artists and writers, and more like a salve for our pandemic era, one in which division has replaced connection and anxiety overrides
