Coordinates: 48°52′27″N 2°20′42″E / 48.874167°N 2.345000°E
The Folies Bergère is a Parisian music hall which was at the height of its fame and popularity from the 1890s through the 1920s. As of May 2009[update] the institution is still in business.
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History
Located at 32 rue Richer in the 9th Arrondissement, it was built as an opera house by the architect Plumeret. It was patterned after the Alhambra music hall in London.
It opened on 2 May 1869 as the Folies Trévise, with fare including operettas, comic opera, popular songs, and gymnastics.
The French word "folies", derived from the Latin foliae ("leaves"), connoted the idea of an outdoor entertainment venue, and was paired with the name of an adjacent street, the rue de Trévise. (The music hall stands on the intersection of the rue Richer and the rue de Trévise.) But the Duc de Trévise, a prominent nobleman, did not want his name associated with a bawdy dance hall, and it was consequently renamed the Folies Bergère on 13 September 1872, after another nearby street, the rue Bergère (the feminine form of "shepherd").[1]
Édouard Manet's 1882 well-known painting A Bar at the Folies-Bergère depicts a bar-girl, one of the demimondaine, standing before a mirror.
The Folies Bergère catered to popular taste. Shows featured elaborate costumes; the women's were frequently revealing, practically leaving them naked, and shows often contained a good deal of nudity. Shows also played up the "exoticness" of persons and objects from other cultures, obliging the Parisian fascination with the négritude of the 1920s.
Notable performers
In the early 1890s, the American dancer Loie Fuller starred at the Folies Bergère. Nearly thirty years later, in 1926, Joséphine Baker, an African-American expatriate singer, dancer, and entertainer, became an overnight sensation at the Folies Bergère with her suggestive "banana dance", in which she wore a skirt made of bananas and little else.
Other Notable Folies Bergère Performers
- Cantinflas
- Charlie Chaplin
- Maurice Chevalier
- Dalida
- Liane de Pougy
- Fernandel
- Ella Fitzgerald
- Jean Gabin
- Benny Hill
- Zizi Jeanmaire
- Elton John
- Valérie Lemercier
- Marcel Marceau
- Mistinguett
- Yves Montand
- Edith Piaf
- Yvonne Printemps
- Raimu
- Frank Sinatra
- Charles Trenet
Similar venues
The Folies Bergère inspired the Ziegfeld Follies in the United States and other similar shows, including a longstanding revue at the Tropicana Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. The Las Vegas Folies Bergere, which opened in 1959, closed at the end of March 2009, after nearly 50 years in operation.[2]
Notes
- ^ A Brief History of the Folies-Bergère Art & Architecture
- ^ BBC: Folies bows out amid credit crisis
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Folies Bergère |
 Josephine Baker in Banana Skirt from the Folies Bergère production "Un Vent de Folie" |
 The Folies Bergère in 2005. |
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