Cabaret (French pronunciation:[kabaʁɛ]ⓘ) is a form of theatricalentertainment featuringmusic,song,dance,recitation, ordrama. The performance venue might be apub, acasino, ahotel, arestaurant, or anightclub[1] with a stage for performances. The audience, often dining or drinking, does not typically dance but usually sits at tables. Performances are usually introduced by amaster of ceremonies (M.C.). The entertainment, as performed by an ensemble of actors and according to its European origins, is often (but not always) oriented towards adult audiences and of a clearlyunderground nature. In the United States,striptease,burlesque,drag shows, or asolo vocalist with a pianist, as well as thevenues which offer this entertainment, are often advertised as cabarets.
The term originally came fromPicard language orWalloon language wordscamberete orcambret for a small room (12th century). The first printed use of the wordkaberet is found in a document from 1275 inTournai. The term was used since the 13th century inMiddle Dutch to mean an inexpensive inn or restaurant (caberet,cabret).[2]
The wordcambret is itself probably derived from an earlier form ofchambrette or "little room", or from the Norman Frenchchamber meaning "tavern", itself derived from the Late Latin wordcamera meaning an arched roof.[3]
Cabarets had appeared in Paris by at least the late 15th century. They were distinguished from taverns because they served food as well as wine, the table was covered with a cloth, and the price was charged by the plate, not the mug.[4]They were not particularly associated with entertainment even if musicians sometimes performed in both.[5] Early on, cabarets were considered better than taverns; by the end of the sixteenth century, they were the preferred place to dine out. In the 17th century, a clearer distinction emerged when taverns were limited to selling wine, and later to serving roast meats.
Cabarets were frequently used as meeting places for writers, actors, friends and artists. Writers such asLa Fontaine,Moliere andJean Racine were known to frequent a cabaret called theMouton Blanc on rue du Vieux-Colombier, and later theCroix de Lorraine on the modern rue Bourg-Tibourg. In 1773, French poets, painters, musicians and writers began to meet in a cabaret calledLe Caveau on rue de Buci, where they composed and sang songs. The Caveau continued until 1816, when it was forced to close because its clients wrote songs mocking the royal government.[4]
TheCafé des Aveugles ("Café of the Blind") in the cellars of thePalais-Royal at the beginning of the 19th century
In the 18th century, thecafé-concert orcafé-chantant appeared, which offered food along with music, singers, or magicians. The most famous was theCafe des Aveugles in the cellars of thePalais-Royal, which had a small orchestra of blind musicians. In the early 19th century, many cafés-chantants appeared around the city; the most famous were theCafé des Ambassadeurs (1843) on theChamps-Élysées and the Eldorado (1858) on boulevard Strasbourg. By 1900, there were more than 150 cafés-chantants in Paris.[6]
The first cabaret in the modern sense wasLe Chat Noir in the bohemian neighborhood ofMontmartre, created in 1881 byRodolphe Salis, a theatrical agent and entrepreneur.[7] It combined music and other entertainment with political commentary and satire.[8] TheChat Noir brought together the wealthy and famous of Paris with the bohemians and artists of Montmartre and thePigalle. Its clientele "was a mixture of writers and painters, of journalists and students, of employees and high-livers, as well as models, prostitutes and true grand dames searching for exotic experiences."[9] The host was Salis himself, calling himself a gentleman-cabaretier; he began each show with a monologue mocking the wealthy, ridiculing the deputies of the National Assembly, and making jokes about the events of the day. The cabaret was too small for the crowds trying to get in; at midnight on June 10, 1885, Salis and his customers moved down the street to a larger new club at 12 rue de Laval, which had a decor described as "A sort of Beirut with Chinese influences." The composerEric Satie, after finishing his studies at the Conservatory, earned his living playing the piano at theChat Noir.[9]
TheMoulin Rouge in 18931896 advertisement for a tour of the first French cabaret show,Le Chat Noir.
By 1896, there were 56 cabarets and cafes with music in Paris, along with a dozen music halls. The cabarets did not have a high reputation; one critic wrote in 1897 that "they sell drinks which are worth fifteen centimes along with verses which, for the most part, are worth nothing."[9] The traditional cabarets, with monologues and songs and little decor, were replaced by more specialized venues; some, like theBoite a Fursy (1899), specialized in current events, politics and satire. Some were purely theatrical, producing short scenes of plays. Some focused on the macabre or erotic. TheCaberet de la fin du Monde had servers dressed as Greek and Roman gods and presented living tableaus that were between erotic and pornographic.[10]
By the end of the century, there were only a few cabarets of the old style remaining where artists and bohemians gathered. They included theCabaret des noctambules on Rue Champollion on the Left Bank; theLapin Agile at Montmartre; andLe Soleil d'or at the corner of the quai Saint-Michel and boulevard Saint-Michel, where poets includingGuillaume Apollinaire andAndré Salmon met to share their work.[10]
Themusic hall, first invented in London, appeared in Paris in 1862. It offered more lavish musical and theatrical productions, with elaborate costumes, singing, and dancing. The theaters of Paris, fearing competition from the music halls, had a law passed by the National Assembly forbidding music hall performers to wear costumes, dance, wear wigs, or recite dialogue. The law was challenged by the owner of the music hallEldorado in 1867, who put a former famous actress from the Comédie-Française on stage to recite verse from Corneille and Racine. The public took the side of the music halls, and the law was repealed.[11]
TheMoulin Rouge was opened in 1889 by the Catalan Joseph Oller. It was greatly prominent because of the large red imitation windmill on its roof, and became the birthplace of the dance known as the FrenchCancan. It helped make famous the singersMistinguett andÉdith Piaf and the painterToulouse-Lautrec, who made posters for the venue. TheOlympia, also run by Oller, was the first to be called a music hall; it opened in 1893, followed by the Alhambra Music Hall in 1902, and the Printania in 1903. The Printania, open only in summer, had a largemusic garden which seated twelve thousand spectators, and produced dinner shows which presented twenty-three different acts, including singers, acrobats, horses, mimes, jugglers, lions, bears and elephants, with two shows a day.[11]
In the 20th century, the competition from motion pictures forced the dance halls to put on shows that were more spectacular and more complex. In 1911, the producer Jacques Charles of theOlympia Paris created the grand staircase as a setting for his shows, competing with its great rival, theFolies Bergère which had been founded in 1869. Its stars in the 1920s included the American singer and dancerJosephine Baker. TheCasino de Paris, directed by Leon Volterra and then Henri Varna, presented many famous French singers, including Mistinguett,Maurice Chevalier, andTino Rossi.[11]
Le Lido on the Champs-Élysées opened in 1946, presenting Édith Piaf,Laurel and Hardy,Shirley MacLaine,Marlene Dietrich,Maurice Chevalier, andNoël Coward. TheCrazy Horse Saloon, featuring striptease, dance, and magic, opened in 1951. The Olympia Paris went through a number of years as a movie theater before being revived as a music hall and concert stage in 1954. Performers there included Piaf, Dietrich,Miles Davis,Judy Garland, and theGrateful Dead. A handful of music halls exist today in Paris, attended mostly by visitors to the city; and a number of more traditional cabarets, with music and satire, can be found.
In the Netherlands, cabaret orkleinkunst (literally: "small art") is a popular form of entertainment, usually performed in theatres. The birth date of Dutch cabaret is usually set at August 19, 1895.[12] In Amsterdam, there is the Kleinkunstacademie (English: Cabaret Academy). It is often a mixture of (stand-up) comedy, theatre, and music and often includes social themes and political satire. In the mid twentieth century, "the big three" wereWim Sonneveld,Wim Kan, andToon Hermans.
Nowadays, many cabaret performances by popular comedians are broadcast on national television, especially on New Year's Eve, when theoudejaarsconference is broadcast. The oudejaarsconference is a cabaret performance in which the comedian looks back on the events of the past year.
GermanKabarett developed from 1901, with the creation of theÜberbrettl (Superstage) venue, and by theWeimar era in the mid-1920s, theKabarett performances were characterized bypolitical satire andgallows humor.[13] It shared the characteristic atmosphere of intimacy with the French cabaret from which it was imported, but the gallows humor was a distinct German aspect.[13]
In theinterwar Poland there was a considerable number ofYiddish-language cabarets. This art form was calledkleynkunst (lliterally "small art") in Yiddish.
In post-war Poland, it is almost always associated with thetroupe (oftenon tour), not thevenue; pre-warrevue shows (with female dancers) were long gone.[citation needed]
A long-established cabaret venue in Manhattan, New York
American cabaret was imported from French cabaret byJesse Louis Lasky in 1911.[16][17][18] In the United States, cabaret diverged into several different styles of performance mostly due to the influence ofjazz music.Chicago cabaret focused intensely on the larger band ensembles and reached its peak duringRoaring Twenties, under theProhibition Era, where it was featured in thespeakeasies andsteakhouses.
New York cabaret never developed to feature a great deal of social commentary. When New York cabarets featured jazz, they tended to focus on famous vocalists likeNina Simone,Bette Midler,Eartha Kitt,Peggy Lee, andHildegarde rather than instrumental musicians.Julius Monk's annual revues established the standard for New York cabaret during the late 1950s and '60s.
Cabaret in the United States began to decline in the 1960s, due to the rising popularity ofrock concert shows, televisionvariety shows,[citation needed] and generalcomedy theaters. However, it remained in some Las Vegas-style dinner shows, such as theTropicana, with fewer comedy segments. The art form still survives in various musical formats, as well as in thestand-up comedy format, and in populardrag show performances.
The late 20th and early 21st century saw a revival of American cabaret, particularly inNew Orleans,Chicago,Seattle,Portland,Philadelphia,Orlando,Tulsa,Asheville, North Carolina, andKansas City, Missouri, as new generations of performers reinterpret the old forms in both music and theater. Many contemporary cabaret groups in the United States and elsewhere feature a combination of original music,burlesque and political satire. In New York City, since 1985, successful, enduring or innovative cabaret acts have been honored by the annual Bistro Awards.[19]
TheAni Mru Mru Polish cabaret group performing in Edinburgh in 2007Giti Kashani performing at a cabaret inTehran, before the1979 revolution and new government policy.
The Cabaret Theatre Club, later known asThe Cave of the Golden Calf, was opened byFrida Strindberg (modelled on the Kaberett Fledermaus in Strindberg's native Vienna) in a basement at 9 Heddon Street, London, in 1912. She intended her club to be an avant-garde meeting place for bohemian writers and artists, with decorations byJacob Epstein,Eric Gill, andWyndham Lewis, but it rapidly came to be seen as an amusing place for high society and went bankrupt in 1914. The Cave was nevertheless an influential venture, which introduced the concept of cabaret to London. It provided a model for the generation of nightclubs that came after it.[20]
"The clubs that started the present vogue for dance clubs were the Cabaret Club in Heddon Street . . . . The Cabaret Club was the first club where members were expected to appear in evening clothes. . . . The Cabaret Club began a system of vouchers which friends of members could use to obtain admission to the club. . . . the question of the legality of these vouchers led to a famous visitation of the police. That was the night a certain Duke was got out by way of the kitchen lift . . . The visitation was a well-mannered affair'[21]
One of the main gathering centers of cabarets inTehran (Iranian capital) wasLaleh-Zar Street. Famous Persian cabarets were active in the city until1979. They also introduced many domestic artists. In common language,cabaret sometimes called by Iranians "home of dance" (InPersian:رقاصخانه) or "dancing place".[22]
In 2019 the first Serbian cabaret club Lafayette opened.[34] Although Serbia andBelgrade had a richnightlife and theater life there was no cabaret house until 2019.[35][36]
It retained the intimate atmosphere, entertainment platform, and improvisational character of the French cabaret but developed its own characteristic gallows humour. By the late 1920s the German cabaret gradually had come to feature mildly risque musical entertainment for the middle-class man, as well as biting political and social satire. It was also a centre for underground political and literary movements. [...] They were the centres of leftist of opposition to the rise of the German Nazi Party and often experienced Nazi retaliation for their criticism of the government.
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