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 2008 the institution is still in business.

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").

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 have included singers Maurice Chevalier and Louisa Baileche, and comedian Cantinflas.

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.

Notes

External links

• Folies Bergere official site
• Las Vegas tribute revue