music hall

1. An auditorium for musical performances.
2. Chiefly British.
   1. A vaudeville theater.
   2. Vaudeville.

A form of public entertainment, especially popular with the French urban working classes from the late 1860s to the 1950s. It originated in London as a concert of songs—ribald, sentimental, or patriotic—given in a hall built on to the Canterbury Arms (1848). Later, comedians, dancers, acrobats, conjurors, etc. were added. In France it had its roots in the café-chantant or café-concert, a modest diversion in the form of a local singer offered by some Paris cafés (e.g. Café du Midi, 1847) to their customers for the price of a drink. The innovation was soon copied by other cafés and open-air dance venues, like the Bal Mabille. Subsequently cafés set up makeshift stages with a small band and a corbeille, a half-circle of girls who joined in the choruses. With the rise in eating out and public entertainment which characterized the Second Empire, the cafés-concerts multiplied, expanded, and grew more luxurious. An edict of 1867, granting them the right to mount more varied and costumed productions, virtually turned the cafés-concerts into music-halls. This led to the big variety-halls (Eldorado, Ba-Ta-Clan, Folies-Bergère); the singing stars (Mogador, Thérésa, Paulus); the hit songs (‘La Femme à barbe’, ‘En revenant de la revue’). In the first half of the 20th c. these stage-shows became increasingly spectacular, bringing other halls and stars to prominence, e.g. Mistinguett and Maurice Chevalier at the Casino de Paris. Eventually the music-hall fell victim to the popularity of cinema and television.

[S. Beynon John]

The noun has 2 meanings:

Meaning #1: a theater in which vaudeville is staged
  Synonyms: vaudeville theater, vaudeville theatre

Meaning #2: a variety show with songs and comic acts etc.
  Synonym: vaudeville