The Folies Bergère is a mythical place, one of the most renowned cabarets in the world. One of Paris’s original music halls, the very first revues were performed in the late 1880s. Ever since, Les Folies Bergère has hosted performances by true legends, including Charlie Chaplin, Josephine Baker, Charles Trénet, and French writer Colette, to name but a few. It also inspired a lot of artists, writers, and countless film directors.
To many Parisians, the name Folies Bergère inevitably evokes the Belle Epoque, images of dancers sketched by Toulouse-Lautrec, the exuberant and saucy acts of Josephine Baker, or encore, the sad looking bartender of Manet’s “Le Bar des Folies Bergère.”
Once a hall for operettas, pantomime, political meetings and vaudeville, the Folies Bergère in Paris introduces an elaborate revue featuring women in sensational costumes on November 30, 1886. The highly popular “Place aux Jeunes” established the Folies as the premier nightlife spot in Paris. In the 1890s, the Folies followed the Parisian taste for striptease and quickly gained a reputation for its spectacular nude shows. The theater spared no expense, staging revues that featured as many as 40 sets, 1,000 costumes, and an off-stage crew of some 200 people.
The Folies Bergère dates back to 1869, when it opened as one of the first major music halls in Paris. It produced light opera and pantomimes with unknown singers and proved a resounding failure. Greater success came in the 1870s, when the Folies Bergère staged vaudeville. Among other performers, the early vaudeville shows featured acrobats, a snake charmer, a boxing kangaroo, trained elephants, the world’s tallest man, and a Greek prince who was covered in tattoos allegedly as punishment for trying to seduce the Shah of Persia’s daughter. The public was allowed to drink and socialize in the theater’s indoor garden and promenade area, and the Folies Bergère became synonymous with the carnal temptations of the French capital. Famous paintings by Édouard Manet and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec were set in the Folies.
In 1886, the Folies Bergère went under new management, which, on November 30, staged the first revue-style music hall show. The “Place aux Jeunes,” featuring scantily clad chorus girls, was a tremendous success. The Folies women gradually wore less and less as the 20th century approached, and the show’s costumes and sets became more and more outrageous. Among the performers who got their start at the Folies Bergère were Yvette Guilbert, Maurice Chevalier, and Mistinguett. The African American dancer and singer Josephine Baker made her Folies debut in 1926, lowered from the ceiling in a flower-covered sphere that opened onstage to reveal her wearing a G-string ornamented with bananas.
The Folies Bergère remained a success throughout the 20th century and still can be seen in Paris today, although the theater now features many mainstream concerts and performances. Among other traditions that date back more than a century, the show’s title always contains 13 letters and includes the word “Folie.”
It was the architect Plumeret, who was a building inspector of the crown, that designed the building based on the Alhambra music hall in London, and it was originally meant to be a lavish, elegant opera house.
First inaugurated on 2nd May 1869 with all the grandeur that was expected of such a venue, it had been the customary to name theatres, also known as folies, after where they were located in the city, and therefore the original name was Folies Trevise because of a street of that name by the stage door. However, the Duc de Trevise objected, as he did not want his name associated with a theatre.
The next name was going to be Folies Richer, but again this was also a surname, and therefore they decided on the name Folies Bergere which was a street name nearby, plus this did not refer to any nobility or upset any people as there was no family name associated with this.
A Brief History of the Folies-Bergère
"The Folies-Bergères [sic] , rue Richter 32, near the Boulevard Montmartre, a very popular resort... visitors take seats where thy please, or promenade in the galleries, while musical, dramatic and conjuring performances are given on the stage. Admission 2Fr"
Baedeker, Paris and Its Environs, 1878
Quoted by T. J. Clark
The Folies-Bergère was the first music-hall to be opened in Paris. It was conceived in conscious imitation of the Alhambra in London, a music hall known and much-loved for broad comedy, opera, ballet and circus.
The Folies-Bergère was supposed to be the Folies Trevise, because it was on the corner of the rue Richter and the rue Trevise. The Duc de Trevise would not allow his name to be brought into such potential ill-repute. The rue Bergère, a road named after a master dyer, was a block or so away. 'Folies' came from the Latin, foliae, meaning 'leaves' but transmogrified into 'field' and thence to a place for open-air entertainment.
The Folies-Bergère opened in May 1869, not far from the heart of the post-Haussmann cultural centre of Paris, south of Montmartre, a little east of the boulevard des Italiens (known simply as The Boulevard). Entry cost 2 francs for an unreserved seat.
In November 1871, following the considerable interruptions of the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune, the theatre was taken over by Leon Sari, who remodelled the auditorium, put in the famous promenade, and installed a 'garden' with a large central fountain.
A Folies-Bergère show typically included ballet, acrobatics, pantomime, operetta, animal acts, many including spectacular special effects. However, the Folies-Bergère was perhaps more well-known for its sensual allures, as described by Huysmans and Maupassant.
The women of the promenoir were required to demonstrate discretion; none were allowed in without fortnightly-renewable cards issued by the management. This arrangement lasted until 1918.
Artists and writers were drawn to the Folies-Bergère and establishments like it not least because they were fascinating venues for the practice of social anthropology, where different classes met in an environment in which strict bourgeois morality held no sway whatsoever. Manet's picture features his friends - artists and models; it is the kind of fashionable place in which he spent his evenings.
WPW
ref: Charles Castle, The Folies-Bergère, Methuen 1982