Le Chat Noir
Encyclopedia
Cabaret
Cabaret is a form, or place, of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue: a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting at tables watching the performance, as introduced by a master of ceremonies or...
, meaning entertainment house, in the bohemian Montmartre
Montmartre
Montmartre is a hill which is 130 metres high, giving its name to the surrounding district, in the north of Paris in the 18th arrondissement, a part of the Right Bank. Montmartre is primarily known for the white-domed Basilica of the Sacré Cœur on its summit and as a nightclub district...
district of Paris
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...
. It was first opened on 18 November 1881 at 84 Boulevard Rochechouart by the impresario
Impresario
An impresario is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays or operas; analogous to a film producer in filmmaking, television production and an angel investor in business...
Rodolphe Salis
Rodolphe Salis
Louis Rodolphe Salis was the creator, host and owner of the Le Chat Noir cabaret With this establishment Salis is remembered as the creator of the modern cabaret: a nightclub where the patrons could sit at tables with alcoholic drinks and enjoy variety acts on a stage, introduced by a master of...
, and closed in 1897 not long after Salis' death (much to the disappointment of Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
and others who looked for it when they came to Paris for the Exposition in 1900).
Le Chat Noir is thought to be the first modern cabaret: a nightclub where the patrons sat at tables and drank alcoholic beverages while being entertained by a variety show on stage, introduced by a master of ceremonies who interacted with people he knew at the tables. Its imitators have included cabarets from St. Petersburg (The Stray Dog) to Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
(Els Quatre Gats
Els Quatre Gats
Els Quatre Gats , often written Els 4 Gats, was a café in Barcelona which opened on 12 June 1897. It also operated as a hostel, a cabaret, a pub and a restaurant. Active until 1903, Els Quatre Gats became one of the main centers of Modernisme in Barcelona...
).
Perhaps best known now by its iconic Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen
Théophile Steinlen
Théophile Alexandre Steinlen, frequently referred to as just Steinlen , was a Swiss-born French Art Nouveau painter and printmaker....
poster art, in its heyday it was a bustling nightclub that was part artist salon, part rowdy music hall. The cabaret published its own humorous journal Le Chat Noir, which survived until 1899. It began by renting the cheapest accommodations it could find, a small two room affair at 84 Boulevard Rochechouart, but within three and a half years its popularity forced it to move into larger accommodations a few doors down, in June, 1885. Located at 12 Rue Victor-Masse (which before 1885 had been Rue de Laval 12), the new establishment was sumptuous. It was the old private mansion of the painter Alfred Steven, who, at the request of Salis, had transformed it into a “fashionable country inn” with the help of the architect Maurice Isabey.
Salis most often played, with exaggerated, ironic politeness, the role of conférencier (post-performance lecturer, or Emcee). It was here that the Salon des Arts Incohérents
Incoherents
The Incoherents was a short-lived French art movement founded by Parisian writer and publisher Jules Lévy in 1882, which in its satirical irreverence anticipated many of the art techniques and attitudes later associated with avant-garde and anti-art.Lévy coined the phrase "les arts incohérents" as...
(Salon of Incoherent Arts), the "shadow plays" and the comic monologues got their start.
According to Salis: "The Chat Noir is the most extraordinary cabaret in the world. You rub shoulders with the most famous men of Paris, meeting there with foreigners from every corner of the world."
Adolphe Willette
Adolphe-Léon Willette was a French painter, illustrator, caricaturist, and lithographer. Willette ran as an "anti-semitic" candidate in the 19th arrondisement of Paris for the 1889 elections.-Biography:...
, Caran d'Ache
Caran d'Ache
Caran d'Ache was the pseudonym of the 19th century French satirist and political cartoonist Emmanuel Poiré. "Caran d'Ache" comes from the Russian word karandash , meaning pencil...
, André Gill
André Gill
André Gill was a French caricaturist. Born Louis-Alexandre Gosset de Guînes at Paris, the son of the Comte de Guînes and Sylvie-Adeline Gosset, he studied at this city's Academy of Fine Arts. He adopted the pseudonym André Gill in homage to his hero, James Gillray. Gill began illustrating for...
, Emile Cohl
Émile Cohl
Émile Cohl , born Émile Eugène Jean Louis Courtet, was a French caricaturist of the largely forgotten Incoherent Movement, cartoonist, and animator, called "The Father of the Animated Cartoon" and "The Oldest Parisian".-Biography:Émile's father Elie was a rubber salesman, and his mother, Emilie...
, Paul Bilhaud, Sarah England, Paul Verlaine
Paul Verlaine
Paul-Marie Verlaine was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the fin de siècle in international and French poetry.-Early life:...
, Henri Rivière
Henri Rivière (painter)
Henri Rivière was a French artist and designer best known for his creation of a form of shadow play at the Chat Noir cabaret, and for his post-Impressionist illustrations of Breton landscapes and the Eiffel Tower....
, Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
, Erik Satie
Erik Satie
Éric Alfred Leslie Satie was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde...
, Charles Cros
Charles Cros
Charles Cros was a French poet and inventor. He was born in Fabrezan, Aude, France, 35 km to the East of Carcassonne....
, Jules Laforgue
Jules Laforgue
Jules Laforgue was an innovative Franco-Uruguayan poet, often referred to as a Symbolist poet. Critics and commentators have also pointed to Impressionism as a direct influence and his poetry has been called "part-symbolist, part-impressionist".-Life:...
, Charles Moréas, Albert Samain
Albert Samain
Albert Victor Samain was a French poet and writer of the Symbolist school.Born in Lille, his family were Flemish and had long lived in the town or its suburbs. At the time of the poet's birth, his father, Jean-Baptiste Samain, and his mother, Elisa-Henriette Mouquet, conducted a business in "wines...
, Louis Le Cardonnel, Coquelin Cadet
Ernest Alexandre Honoré Coquelin
Ernest Alexandre Honoré Coquelin was a French actor. Also called Coquelin cadet, to distinguish him from his brother, he was born at Boulogne, and entered the Conservatoire in 1864....
, Emile Goudeau, Alphonse Allais
Alphonse Allais
Alphonse Allais was a French writer and humorist born in Honfleur, Calvados.He is the author of many collections of whimsical writings. A poet as much as a humorist, he in particular cultivated the verse form known as holorhyme, i.e. made up entirely of homophonous verses, where entire lines rhyme...
, Maurice Rollinat
Maurice Rollinat
Maurice Rollinat was a French poet.-Early works:His father represented Indre in the National Assembly of 1848, and was a friend of George Sand, whose influence is very marked in young Rollinat's first volume, Dans les brandes , and to whom it was dedicated.-Brief fame:After its publication, he...
, Maurice Donnay
Charles Maurice Donnay
Charles Maurice Donnay , French dramatist, was born of middle-class parents in Paris. Graduated as an engineer of École Centrale Paris, he left the industrial sector to write....
, Marie Krysinska, Jane Avril
Jane Avril
Jane Avril was a French can-can dancer made famous by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec through his paintings. Extremely thin, 'given to jerky movements and sudden contortions', she was nicknamed La Mélinite, after an explosive. -Biography:...
, Armand Masson, Aristide Bruant
Aristide Bruant
Aristide Bruant was a French cabaret singer, comedian, and nightclub owner. He is best known as the man in the red scarf and black cape featured on certain famous posters by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec...
, Théodore Botrel
Théodore Botrel
Jean-Baptiste-Théodore-Marie Botrel was a French singer-songwriter, poet and playwright. He is best known for his popular songs about his native Brittany, of which the most famous is La Paimpolaise. During World War I he became France's official "Bard of the Armies".-Life:Born in Dinan, Botrel was...
, Paul Signac
Paul Signac
Paul Signac was a French neo-impressionist painter who, working with Georges Seurat, helped develop the pointillist style.-Biography:Paul Victor Jules Signac was born in Paris on 11 November 1863...
, Yvette Guilbert
Yvette Guilbert
Yvette Guilbert was a French cabaret singer and actress of the Belle Époque.-Biography:...
, August Strindberg
August Strindberg
Johan August Strindberg was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg's career spanned four decades, during which time he wrote over 60 plays and more than 30 works of fiction, autobiography,...
, and George Auriol
George Auriol
George Auriol, born Jean-Georges Huyot , was a French poet, songwriter, graphic designer, type designer, and Art Nouveau artist...
.
Today Le Chat Noir has been transformed into a modern boutique hotel, with a few nods to its raucous past.