[DUKE, spoken]
So you arranged this rendezvous in order to audition your new show for me, hoping I would invest...

[SATINE, spoken]
Nailed it in one!

[Various affirming chatter, nervous laughter]

[DUKE]
So, what's the story of your show?

[TOULOUSE-LAUTREC]
The story! Ah! Yes, uh...

[CHRISTIAN]
There'll be—
Lovers

[SATINE]
And singers

[ZIDLER]
And entrepreneurs

[TOULOUS-LAUTREC]
Depravity!
[SANTIAGO]
Ecstasy!

[CHRISTIAN]
Love that endures...

[TOULOUS-LAUTREC]
Worthy of even the best raconteur
A tale in the shadows of dear Sacré-Coeur...

We—
See—
A—
—long the Seine, upon its filthy shore
The bloated corpses of those
Killed the night before!

[ZIDLER]
But it's a family show!
With art both high and low

[CHRISTIAN]
A tale of love

[SANTIAGO]
And death!
[SATINE]
And sex!

[TOULOUS-LAUTREC]
And money!

[ZIDLER]
Dancing, and away we go...

[TOULOUS-LAUTREC]
Sweet Satine, who plays our ingénue
A sparrow singing up and down each avenue

[SATINE]
She wears a thin, black dress, and tells her tale of woe
Of pain and loneliness

[TOULOUS-LAUTREC]
But that's not all, as these things go

She's rather sick, with some obscure malaise
No doubt a cruel trick from wilder, desperate days

[SATINE]
But one day singing through her pain
The sun kicks out the rain
And there he stands, a lover
[TOULOUS-LAUTREC, spoken]
Yes, one day everything changes, when she meets - a man!

[CHRISTIAN, spoken]
A man unlike any she has known. He's, uh...

[TOULOUS-LAUTREC, spoken]
A ventriloquist!

[SANTIAGO, spoken]
No, he's a matador! Striding across the sands of destiny!

[ZIDLER, spoken]
No, no, no, he's a sailor!

[TOULOUS-LAUTREC, spoken]
Yes, a sailor! That's it! A man who has spent his life voyaging across the turbulent seas!

[CHRISTIAN]
He's been searching for a mate
And now it seems like fate
A gift from God above

[CHRISTIAN & SATINE]
A love, divine, forevermore
Their bodies intertwine...

[TOULOUS-LAUTREC]
But fate has many other things in store...

[ZIDLER]
There's a man who already claims her
An evil gangster, who runs this town

[TOULOUS-LAUTREC]
She's unhappy and no one blames her

[TOULOUS-LAUTREC & SANTIAGO]
The most lascivious racketeer around

[ALL]
He buys her love

[SATINE]
He buys her clothes

[ZIDLER]
He's rough but this is all the poor girl knows!

[ALL]
He buys her love!

[CHRISTIAN]
There's no escape...
But now a triangle has taken shape

[TOULOUS-LAUTREC]
And so, the sailor, driven mad
Determined to unseat this cad
Swears to risk his life for love
And there's our show, all of the above!

[SATINE]
A spectacle of savagery!

[SANTIAGO]
A testament to lunacy, haha!

[ZIDLER]
Fun for the whole family!

[TOULOUS-LAUTREC]
And all of it designed by me!

[ALL]
So exciting!

[ZIDLER]
The audience will stomp and cheer!

[ALL]
So delighting!

[ZIDLER]
It will run for fifty years!

[ALL]
So exciting!
Make 'em laugh and make 'em cry!

So delighting!

[CHRISTIAN]
And in the end, should someone die?

[ALL]
So exciting!
Make our dreams reality!

So delighting!

[SATINE]
Make it happen just for me!

[MEN]
Me, me, me, me

[ALL]
Make it happen just for me!