Folies Bergère

Stand on rue Richer for a moment and listen. Scooters buzz past. Café chairs scrape on the pavement. Above you, a woman made of gold and colour stretches across the façade, her body bent in a long, graceful curve. The street is narrow, so you have to tilt your head back to see her properly. This is the Folies Bergère, one of the oldest music halls in Paris. For well over a century, people have come to this doorway hoping to be dazzled.

The hall opened in 1869, in the ninth arrondissement, an area of theatres, shops and apartment blocks just north of the Grands Boulevards. At first it carried a different name — the Folies Trévise, after the nearby rue de Trévise. According to the usual account, a nobleman connected to that name objected to seeing it on a place of popular entertainment. So the owners changed it. The new name came from rue Bergère, another street close by. Their choice stuck, and it became famous around the world.

In its early years, this was not the feathered revue you might picture. It was closer to a variety hall. Audiences watched acrobats, singers, comic sketches, pantomime and operetta. People did not always sit still. They strolled through the promenade areas, drank, talked and watched each other as much as the stage. The music hall was a social space as much as a theatre. That mix of performance and people-watching shaped its reputation for decades.

Here is a surprise for many visitors. One of the most famous images of this building is not a photograph or a poster. It is a painting by Édouard Manet, called A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, finished in 1882. It shows a young barmaid behind a marble counter, with bottles and oranges in front of her. Behind her, a mirror shows the crowded hall. The painting does not hang in Paris. It belongs to the Courtauld Gallery in London.

Look closely at that painting one day, and you will notice something strange. The reflection in the mirror does not quite match the scene in front of it. The barmaid's reflection seems shifted to the side, and a man appears who should be standing right in front of us. Art historians have argued about this for many years. Was it a mistake, or a deliberate puzzle? Either way, Manet captured the feeling of this place — glamour on the surface, and a quiet loneliness underneath.

In the 1890s, the stage held a new kind of magic. The American dancer Loie Fuller performed here with huge swirls of silk, lit by coloured electric light. As she moved, the fabric rose and turned like petals or flames. Electric stage lighting was still new, and audiences had never seen anything quite like it. Her act helped make the hall a place where modern ideas about light and movement could reach a wide public, not only an artistic elite.

Now look again at the façade above you. That shimmering figure belongs to the 1920s, when the building received its Art Deco front. Art Deco was a style of clean lines, geometric patterns and bold, stylised forms, very fashionable between the two world wars. The dancer is shown in relief, raised slightly from the wall, with gold and coloured surfaces catching the daylight. She is a portrait of an era that loved speed, rhythm and spectacle.

That same decade brought one of the most famous performers in the hall's story. Josephine Baker, an American dancer and singer, appeared here in the mid-1920s. Her costume of artificial bananas became one of the best-known images of Paris between the wars. She was energetic, funny and fearless on stage, and Paris adored her. Later in life, she also became known for her work with the French Resistance during the Second World War, and for her campaigns against racism.

Many other famous names passed through these doors. The singer Mistinguett and the entertainer Maurice Chevalier were both closely linked with the Paris music hall world of this period. A young Charlie Chaplin is also said to have appeared in Paris with a touring English comedy troupe before his film career. The Folies Bergère became a kind of crossroads. Performers from Britain, America and across Europe came here, and the hall helped shape their reputations.

For much of the twentieth century, the hall was famous for grand revues. These were long shows with dozens of dancers, huge staircases, elaborate costumes and feathered headdresses. Scene followed scene at high speed. A long-serving director, Paul Derval, ran the hall for decades and helped build this lavish style. Many of the show titles followed a playful tradition — they were often thirteen letters long, which was thought to bring good luck to the house.

The revues also had a reputation for daring. Dancers sometimes appeared with very little clothing, and this gave the hall a slightly scandalous image abroad. For many foreign visitors, the name Folies Bergère simply meant Paris nightlife. Yet inside, the work was highly disciplined. Costume makers, set builders, musicians and stage crews worked behind the scenes to keep these complex shows running smoothly, night after night, season after season.

Today, the hall is still a working theatre. Instead of the old revues, it now presents a changing programme of musicals, concerts, comedy and touring productions. If you go inside for a show, notice how the interior keeps a sense of the old music hall — the warm colours, the curve of the auditorium, the closeness between stage and seats. If you are only passing by, the street itself still gives you a sense of the place, with posters and people gathering before an evening performance.

Before you walk on, take one more look at the golden dancer above the entrance. Notice how the light moves across her as clouds pass, and how she seems to lean into the street. Listen again to the traffic, the voices, the doors of nearby cafés. People have stood on this pavement for more than 150 years, waiting for the lights inside to come up. As you walk away, you are part of that long line of curious visitors.