Paris Olympia
The Olympia (French pronunciation: [ɔlɛ̃pja]; commonly known as L'Olympia or in the English-speaking world as Olympia Hall)[2] is a concert venue in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, France, located at 28 Boulevard des Capucines, equally distancing Madeleine church and Opéra Garnier, 300 metres (980 ft) north of Vendôme square. Its closest métro/RER stations are Madeleine, Opéra, Havre–Caumartin, and Auber.
The hall was opened in 1893 by one of the two co-creators of the Moulin Rouge venue, and saw many opera, ballet, and music hall performances. Theatrical performances declined in the late 1920s and the Olympia was converted into a cinema, before re-opening as a venue in 1954 with Bruno Coquatrix as executive director. Since the 1960s, it has been a popular venue for rock bands.
History
Origins
In 1880, the entrepreneur Joseph Oller purchased grounds and converted them into a horse racing venue. In 1882, he created innovative mechanisms to interact the exit of the horses with the distribution of tickets.
In 1888, with the money earned from these investments, he imported a wooden roller coaster from England. In the same year, Oller collaborated with Charles Zidler to build the roller coaster in the courtyard on 28 Boulevard des Capucines in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, near the Opéra Garnier, at the time of Baron Haussmann's urban renovation. Named the Montagnes Russes, it would be considered one of the first wider amusement parks in history. In 1889, Oller and Zidler co-founded the Moulin Rouge in Pigalle.
In 1892, the Prefect of Police feared a conflagration and ordered the Montagnes Russes' closure and ban. It was then demolished. In that year, supervised by architect Léon Carle, a steel building foundation was constructed and erected in the same place. The interior fittings were conceived by decorators and painters Charles Toché, Marcel Jambon, and Etienne Cornellier. It contained panels in Sarreguemines' faience, and the murals highlighted painting technique marouflage, illustrating English castles and landscapes, echoing the dominant popular style. The Baccarat crystal glass company created the girandoles and chandeliers, while the electrical installation work was carried out by the company Eclairage Electrique. Oller's primary intention was to propose a defining location of luxury and glamor in Paris.
Opening and early years
On 12 April 1893, the 2,000 capacity venue named L'Olympia was inaugurated as the first Parisian music hall, featuring acrobats, cross-dressers, and a can-can dance performance of La Goulue. The Olympia's gala opening reception drew Paris' wealthiest, the aristocratic, and powerful people. Admission was restricted to a chosen few, the prince–princess, baron–baroness, and count. It also featured the Duke of Morny and figures from the sporting-club, Le Mirliton cabaret, and the jockey-club of the rue Royale.
In a city that only had cafés-concerts, the Olympia with its spacious hall attracted all Parisians enjoying ventriloquists, juggler acts, and numerous ballets and revues. The music hall staged operettas and also pantomimes. Loie Fuller, La Goulue, Leopoldo Fregoli, Dranem, Ouvrard, and Mistinguett were regularly billed at the venue. The Olympia was a "first-class theater", although it retained the colloquial atmosphere of the cafés-concerts in its large surface area divided into two themes, concert, and theater. To differentiate itself from the Folies Bergère, the Olympia imposed itself a different scheduling system by presenting its new ballet creations over a duration of weeks rather than months, alternating with the oldest ones revamped. The ballet blanc was the first Olympia's ballet. The venue demonstrated the dominance of the striptease pantomime Le Coucher de la Mariée, which became the "longest-running and most profitable show in the 1890s". Along with the Folies Bergère, the Olympia scheduled appearances by some "stars" such as La Belle Otero, Émilienne d'Alençon, and Liane de Pougy.
In 1895, Oller, overflowing with activities, opened a museum of wax's mannequins in the basements of the Olympia, representing a visual history of the world from the Passion of Christ to the French Revolution, until the modernity of that time.
However, in 1896, Oller found no more challenge in his multiple projects, and boredom took over.[16] He named chief conductor Oscar de Lagoanaire as director of the music hall, which became a business failure. That same year, the screenings of the first films of the Lumière brothers were scheduled, which were new technologies at that time.
Development
The Isola brothers commissioned cinema pioneer Georges Méliès to create a film component for the ballet production Vers les étoiles, presented in 1906 at the Olympia. This production still has survived; the film is believed to be lost. In 1898, brothers Émile and Vincent Isola, two magicians who began a career as Paris' venue executive directors, became the commercial tenants of the Olympia, as well as of the most popular theaters in the city, such as the Folies Bergère in 1901 and the Gaîté-Lyrique in 1903. The Isola brothers brought attractions from all over the world to Olympia, playing host to multiple entertainment types, and increased the proportion and the spectacular. There were extravagant circus-themed parties with clowns, Contortionists, and the inclusion of exotic singing and dancing. The venue also featured acrobatic performances and wild animals such as seals, monkeys, elephants, and zebras. Furthermore, the French author Colette mimed entirely naked.
Ballets, pantomimes, and operettas became more prominent with larger productions, which led to the Olympia becoming a direct rival to the Opéra Garnier, notably with ballets as Charles Lecocq's Barbe-bleue and Henri Hirschmann's Néron in 1898, and Paul Vidal's L'Impératrice in 1901. Despite the success of the ballets attested by La Belle Aux Cheveux d'Or and Sardanapale, the preferences of Émile and Vincent Isola settled firmly towards operettas, especially revues. Of the few ballets appearances, a limited number of restaged productions from Louis Ganne ensued at the Olympia, such as Au Japon in 1903, performed for the first time at London's Alhambra. Phryné was restaged in 1904, initially performed at the Folies Bergère and at Royan's Casino. The revues at the Olympia were choreographed by prominent figures, as Alfredo Curti, exemplified by Olympia Revue in 1903 and Au Music-Hall in 1905.
In 1905, Paul Ruez was appointed manager for the venue. Two ballet productions, Les Saisons de la Parisienne and Vers Les Etoiles were created in 1905 and 1906 respectively. Although spectacular, it had only lesser pantomime-ballet influences and received mixed reviews.
In 1908, Victor de Cottens and H. B. Marinelli took over as the directors of the music hall. In 1908, Trianon Ballet, and in 1909, Les Aventures de Mlle Clo-Clo, were ballets about flirting. Choreographed by Curti, Paquita, and L'Enlèvement de Psyché debuted on the London stage in 1909 and 1910, respectively, while Papillon d'Or was first performed at the Empire Theater with music composed by Leopold Wenzel. In 1911, Cottens and H. B. Marinelli left their responsibilities which concluded fourteen ballets staged since the arrival of Ruez. That year, Nitokris was the last pantomime-ballet staged at the Olympia .
In 1911, Jacques Charles was trained by both brothers and worked his way up through the Olympia, and became the new executive director, then transformed it into a temple of the revue, entering the "most luxurious period of the place". From 1911 to 1913, three revues included choreographic segments by Léo Staats, which featured dance performances of Natalia Trouhanowa and Stacia Napierkowska. By 1912, the Olympia presented a number of American music hall performers, and also French singers such as Lucienne Boyer, Mistinguett, Damia, Fréhel, Georgius, and Yvonne Printemps. In 1913, a ballet was staged at the Olympia, called Les Franfreluches de L'Amour. Léon Volterra was initially an employee at a car dealership and then joined Charles to began as a programs seller. Volterra negotiated to take charge of the program's sales of Olympia's first dance hall called Le Palais de la Danse, becoming increasingly wealthier.
The Olympia closed its doors for a short period at the beginning of the First World War, while Oller, still the commercial property landlord, struggled financially due to late rent payments and non-payments. Volterra partnered with Olympia chief conductor Raphael Beretta to manage stage shows, giving money to Oller, who "expressly agreed-upon" and Charles' tenant agency, then reopened the music hall one month after the First Battle of the Marne.[24] By then, the revue became the preferred theatrical production choice, and ballet waned in popularity. In 1914, Charles left the Olympia[13] and went to war; he was then wounded on the front lines of the First Battle of Champagne.
In 1915, Volterra and Beretta purchased the Olympia with their financial gains, highlighting chansons with performers such as Boyer, Damia, and Fréhel. The following year, both bought the Casino de Paris and the Folies Bergère. As the bombs dropped from the Zeppelins intensified overnight, Paris shut down its activities, including the Olympia. In 1917, Volterra was fired, leaving the Olympia with a generated personal profit of 1 million de francs.
In 1918, at the end of the war, comedian Paul Franck had been entrusted with the business operation of the music hall and was appointed executive director. In 1922, Olympia's founder Oller died a rich man.[28] Franck revealed new talents, such as Marie Dubas, and brought back on stage artists from the early century that people wished to see again. In 1928, Franck left the music hall, which marked the end of the "golden era".
Movie theater
By 1929, the music hall had turned into a stagnant concept, while sound film began its ascent in France.[29] Then came the consequences of the global economic and financial crisis of the Great Depression, which forced Olympia into bankruptcy.
Born in Tunisia, Jacques Haïk was the Importer and distributor of Charlie Chaplin's films in France and the inventor of his nickname, "Charlot", in the country. While the crisis steadily deepened in France, Haïk purchased the Olympia and completely transformed the place into a movie theater (cinema).
On 11 April 1930, the venue reopened to the public, under the name "Olympia–Théâtre Jacques Haïk", followed by a screening of Clarence Brown's silent film, The Trail of '98. The theater explored the French cinema of the 1930s, celebrating filmmakers such as Jean Renoir, Maurice Tourneur, and Henry Wulschleger. However, the French Courvoisier bank went bankrupt due to the financial crisis. In 1931, Haïk lost all of his real estate companies but returned to film production, built several theaters starting in 1934, and regained a healthy financial situation over the years. On 6 December 1935, the Olympia Théâtre Jacques Haïk was selected by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer during The Great MGM Season—to the detriment of the theater Madeleine—to broadcast a substantial number of film series ending after France's release of Robert Z. Leonard's The Great Ziegfeld in September 1936. Then, MGM moved to Le Paris movie theater on the Champs-Élysées avenue.
Subsequently, the responsibility for the business operation of the Olympia, in its configuration of a movie theater, moved away into a new commercial film company called Gaumont Franco-Film Aubert, then later Pathé, and was finally acquired by entrepreneur Léon Siritzky.
On 9 February 1938, the restyled Olympia movie theater was inaugurated in a gala event with an exclusive screening of La Marseillaise by Renoir.