Cirque d'hiver
Encyclopedia
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
11ème), has been a prominent venue for circus
Circus
A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...
es, exhibitions of dressage
Dressage
Dressage is a competitive equestrian sport, defined by the International Equestrian Federation as "the highest expression of horse training." Competitions are held at all levels from amateur to the World Equestrian Games...
, musical concerts, and other events, including exhibitions of Turkish wrestling
Yagli güres
Oil wrestling , also called grease wrestling, is the Turkish national sport. It is so called because the wrestlers douse themselves with olive oil. It is related to the Uzbeki kurash, Tuvan khuresh and Tatar köräş...
and even fashion shows. The theatre was designed by the architect Jacques Ignace Hittorff
Jacques Ignace Hittorff
Jakob Ignaz Hittorff was a German-born French architect who combined advanced structural use of new materials, notably cast iron, with conservative Beaux-Arts classicism in a career that spanned the decades from the Restoration to the Second Empire.After serving an apprenticeship to a mason in his...
and was opened by Emperor Napoleon III on 11 December 1852 as the Cirque Napoléon. The orchestral concerts of Jules Etienne Pasdeloup
Jules Etienne Pasdeloup
Jules Étienne Pasdeloup was a French conductor.His father was an assistant conductor at the Opéra Comique; he was educated in music at the conservatoire de Paris, leaving with a first prize in piano...
were inaugurated at the Cirque Napoléon on 27 October 1861 and continued for more than twenty years. The theatre was renamed Cirque d'hiver in 1870.
The nearest métro station is Filles du Calvaire
Filles du Calvaire (Paris Metro)
Filles du Calvaire is a station on line 8 of the Paris Métro, named after the Boulevard des Filles du Calvaire.The station opened on 5 May 1931 with the extension of the line from Richelieu - Drouot to Porte de Charenton. The boulevard was named after the Calvairiennes or Filles du Calvaire who...
.
History
The circus is an oval polygon of 20 sides, with Corinthian columnsCorinthian order
The Corinthian order is one of the three principal classical orders of ancient Greek and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric and Ionic. When classical architecture was revived during the Renaissance, two more orders were added to the canon, the Tuscan order and the Composite order...
at the angles, giving the impression of an oval building enclosing the oval ring, surrounded by steeply banked seating for spectators, very much like a miniature indoor Colosseum
Colosseum
The Colosseum, or the Coliseum, originally the Flavian Amphitheatre , is an elliptical amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, the largest ever built in the Roman Empire...
. A low angled roof is self-supporting like a low dome
Dome
A dome is a structural element of architecture that resembles the hollow upper half of a sphere. Dome structures made of various materials have a long architectural lineage extending into prehistory....
, so that there is no central pole, as under a tent, to obstruct views or interfere with the action.
The building was designed by the architect Jacques Ignace Hittorff
Jacques Ignace Hittorff
Jakob Ignaz Hittorff was a German-born French architect who combined advanced structural use of new materials, notably cast iron, with conservative Beaux-Arts classicism in a career that spanned the decades from the Restoration to the Second Empire.After serving an apprenticeship to a mason in his...
and opened as the Cirque Napoléon, a compliment to the new Emperor of the French Napoleon III
Napoleon III of France
Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte was the President of the French Second Republic and as Napoleon III, the ruler of the Second French Empire. He was the nephew and heir of Napoleon I, christened as Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte...
. The sculptor James Pradier
James Pradier
James Pradier, also known as Jean-Jacques Pradier was a Swiss-born French sculptor best known for his work in the neoclassical style.-Life and work:...
was called upon to provide exterior bas-reliefs of Amazons
Amazons
The Amazons are a nation of all-female warriors in Greek mythology and Classical antiquity. Herodotus placed them in a region bordering Scythia in Sarmatia...
, and Francisque Duret and Astyanax-Scévola Bosio sculpted the panels of mounted warriors.
The guiding entrepreneur was Louis Dejean, the proprietor of the Cirque d'été ("Summer Circus") erected annually in the bosquet
Bosquet
In the French formal garden, a bosquet is a formal plantation of trees, at least five of identical species planted as a quincunx, or set in strict regularity as to rank and file, so that the trunks line up as one passes along either face...
s that flanked the Champs-Élysées
Champs-Élysées
The Avenue des Champs-Élysées is a prestigious avenue in Paris, France. With its cinemas, cafés, luxury specialty shops and clipped horse-chestnut trees, the Avenue des Champs-Élysées is one of the most famous streets and one of the most expensive strip of real estate in the world. The name is...
. Dejean wagered that evening circus performances under the limelight, with the spectators well removed from the dust and smells of the tanbark floor, would provide a dress occasion for le tout-Paris and he was well rewarded for his acumen.
After the Second Empire
Second French Empire
The Second French Empire or French Empire was the Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870, between the Second Republic and the Third Republic, in France.-Rule of Napoleon III:...
, the Cirque d'hiver was administered by Victor Franconi. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa or simply Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, and illustrator, whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of fin de siècle Paris yielded an œuvre of exciting, elegant and provocative images of the modern...
repeatedly found inspiration in rehearsals and performances at the Cirque d'hiver; Georges Seurat painted an afternoon performance, with a distinctly middle-class audience, in one of the greatest unfinished canvasses in the history of Western painting (1890–91, Musée d'Orsay
Musée d'Orsay
The Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the left bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, an impressive Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1915, including paintings, sculptures, furniture,...
). Franconi's son Charles assumed direction, 1897 – 1907. Since 1934 it has been the Cirque d'hiver-Bouglione, operated by the Bouglione brothers and their heirs.
The original configuration accommodated 4,000, which has now been reduced to 2,090 due to fire codes.
At the Cirque d'hiver in August 1955, Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon was an American photographer. An obituary published in The New York Times said that "his fashion and portrait photographs helped define America's image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century."-Photography career:Avedon was born in New York City to a Jewish Russian...
took his famous photograph of the fashion model "Dovima
Dovima
Dorothy Virginia Margaret Juba , later known as Dorothy Horan, and best known as Dovima, was a model during the 1950s....
with the Elephants" http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/photography/magnify.php?imageid=im00236 to show a floor-length evening dress by Dior
Christian Dior
Christian Dior , was a French fashion designer, best known as the founder of one of the world's top fashion houses, also called Christian Dior.-Life:...
, one of the most iconic fashion photographs of the century.
In 1995, Parisian designer Thierry Mugler
Thierry Mugler
Thierry Mugler is a French fashion designer and creator of several perfumes.-Childhood:Mugler was born in Strasbourg, France on 21 December 1948. His passion led him to focus more on drawing than on school and at the age of 9, he began to study classical dance...
held a special fashion show at the circus, to celebrate his firm's 20th anniversary. Performers and special guests included James Brown
James Brown
James Joseph Brown was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and recording artist. He is the originator of Funk and is recognized as a major figure in the 20th century popular music for both his vocals and dancing. He has been referred to as "The Godfather of Soul," "Mr...
, Tippi Hedron and many of the decade's top supermodels, including Naomi Campbell
Naomi Campbell
Naomi Campbell is a British model. Scouted at the age of 15, she established herself among the top three most recognisable and in-demand models of the late 1980s and early 1990s, and she was one of six models of her generation declared "supermodels" by the fashion world...
.
The circus in fiction
The 1956 film TrapezeTrapeze (film)
Trapeze is a 1956 circus film directed by Carol Reed and starring Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis and Gina Lollobrigida, making her debut in American films....
, directed by Carol Reed
Carol Reed
Sir Carol Reed was an English film director best known for Odd Man Out , The Fallen Idol , The Third Man and Oliver!...
was in part filmed at the Cirque d'hiver.
Sources
- Simeone, Nigel (2000). Paris: A Musical Gazetteer. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300080537.
External links
- http://www.cirquedhiver.com/