CABARET IS NOT AN ACADEMIC SUBJECT

Photo: Danielle Darrieux.

EVEN PIAF WAS NOT A CABARET SINGER!

Edith Piaf started as a very poor and obscure cabaret singer at the very beginning of her career, when she was homeless and penniless.  At a very early age, when she was unknown, she sang in low class “boites de nuits”. Once discovered, she categorically refused to sing in Cabarets and strongly refused to be called a “Cabaret Singer”. All her future performances will take place at France’s most prestigious theaters and stages. Never again, to sing in a Cabaret! To “understand” and “feel” what a CABARET IS, one must be a part of it or at least must have frequented it in its traditional, original and authentic aspect and setting. Cabaret is not an academic subject we study in a university. Cabaret as a theme and as a “human reality” cannot be studied, understood and felt by reading about it or, occasionally attending one of its contemporary acts in ritzy nightclubs and spots in New York or California.  For, we are going to see and learn that the majority of American Cabaret artists, performers, singers, musicians, critics and public alike in America did not grasp the true essence, spirit, business, objectives, mechanism and troubles of the REAL and TRADITIONAL CABARET  which was created and originated in France and Germany! The folks in the United States misinterpreted and misunderstood what an original cabaret was or is. In fact, there is no “true” Cabaret in America. Through out this essay, you will realize that what is portrayed and defined as a CABARET in America is in fact everything but CABARET! The majority of artists, performers and writers in America believe that if a singer is singing songs by Edith Piaf, Yves Montand, Jacques Brel, Juliette Greco, Catherine Sauvage, Mistinguet or Barbara, her repertoire by itself would de facto create a Cabaret ambience, and her act would become a Cabaret act. Unfortunately, this is not quite accurate, for Cabaret (as we shall see later) demands more than singing French songs and communicating with the audience in an intimate and cozy setting and manner!

Photos: Edith Piaf

 

 

 

 

Photos: The legendary French chanteuse Barbara, known as "LA CHANTEUSE DE MINUIT" (The Midnight Singer). The cabaret singer who makes you think and redefine your life. She was romantic, philosophic, intellectual, classy and knew how to deliver a cabaret repertoire. She attracted both,  the sophisticated intellectual and the blasé adventurer. Her persona is diametrically opposed to a "standard cabaret" American singer.

LA CHANTEUSE DE LA MAISON: CHANTEUSE OF THE HOUSE

Photo: Can Can dancers at “La Belle Epoque”. At the very beginning of the Parisian cabaret, almost all the Can Can dancers were "Diseuses", meaning singers, more precisely boite singers, cabaret singers.

CABARET CANNOT BE FRANCHISED OR DUPLICATED

WHAT IS CABARET?

CABARET is a French product. It cannot be authentically duplicated, franchised or Americanized, no matter, how talented and creative an American female artist is. It can be Americanized, Africanized, Middle Easternized or even “nationalized”, but it would never be the same, for it will loose its original cache and character. Cabaret is for the French what hamburger, ketchup, stocks, mortgages, Campbell Soup Cans, blue jeans, patriotism, politics,  college basketball, courage and football are for the Americans.

Historically: Cabaret as a popular term, (except in the United States) means all over the world: An intimate space for adults where striptease and nudity shows are offered; it is also a sleazy bar, a house of prostitutions,  or a nightclub  where  adults can smoke, eat, drink, dance with women readily available to them and where customers searching for a “woman of the night” might get lucky and find one for the right price. Epistemologically, CABARET derived from a 15^th century term meaning “taverne” tavern or even cellar, where artists, travelers and visitors from out-of-town, neighboring counties and distant cities could and would enjoy food and wine drinking. The term evolved throughout the centuries to include acrobats, jugglers, dancers, house singers (chanteuses de la maison), balladeers, fire eaters, magicians, stand up comics, satirists, strolling musicians, comedians, striptease dancers, variety shows, elaborate attractions, extravaganzas and appearances by renown singers, actors, actresses and artists. In the late 19^th century and early 20^th century, Cabaret added a larger dimension to its aspect by focusing on “La Chanson” (song) and “Dance Des Femmes Nues” (Dance by Naked Women). 

Photo: Yvette Guilbert Taking a Curtain Cal, 1894, oil on photographic enlargement of a lithograph 48x25cm, Musee Toulouse-Lautrec.

THE FIRST KNOWN CABARETS
 

In the United States, the song became the major attraction of Cabaret, while in Europe and all over the world, sensuality, sex, eroticism, nudity, mingling with women, “catching the women of the night for a price”. Drinking and music remained or became the characteristics and predominant features of Cabaret. As simple as that! All these aspects were captured in time by the dawn of Cabaret in 1881. But, in addition to its sensual character, Cabaret became a center, a place, a circle for intellectuals, painters, artists, poets, writers, authors, composers, musicians, philosophers, dramatists and men and women of the arts, literature and humanities. In other words, Cabaret became a whole world for everybody. The first known cabaret or café-cabaret was “Les Hydropathes” (described in several parts of this work) followed by “Le Chat Noir” (also discussed at length in this work). Of course, there are some serious modern cabarets in France that exclusively offer a musical repertoire “Tour de Chant” by a well-known singer, a headliner artist as it is the case in the United States but, this kind of Cabaret is to be looked upon as Concert-Cabaret  rather than simply  Cabaret.  Later on, in history, the early Parisian Cabarets were copied in Vienna, Munich, Berlin, Istanbul and a great number of Eastern and Western countries. In 1919, Berlin began to rival Paris. The German Kabarett was born. Similar in concept but more daring, the German Kabarett became cell and a heaven for political schemes, coups d’etats, espionage and conspiracies. To some, German Kabarett was heaven. To many others, it was hell! The German Cabaret movement was known as Dadaism. In postwar Germany, the German Kabarett’s political side became obvious and clear to everybody, including  the learned and  the ignoramus. In Germany, in 1897 Cabaret came to life with Yvette Guilbert in the form of social entertainment, political unrest and protest and accentuated radical satire. In the '20s, Berlin had 122 newspapers, 900 whorehouses, 876 gambling joints and 36  Cabarets of all kinds. The majority of German Kabaretts catered to sexually oriented and motivated clientele. Their kind of operations ranged from strip joints to dancing floors selling sex. They had nothing in common with the Parisian intellectual Café-Cabarets.  It is this very “sex business” and “pornographic enterprise” that gave birth to the name of Kabarett in Berlin. Kabarett became a “pleasure place”, a blend of music, smoking, satires and SEX!

 

Photos: Marlene Dietrich.

 

 

 

CONFUSING CABARET WITH INTIMATE “CONCERT OR RECITAL SINGING”

The overwhelming majority of Cabaret goers in the United States misunderstand the real meaning of the world Cabaret. They are confused by the great number of formulas, genres, styles and different kinds of Cabarets. Music halls, intimate singing and repertoires in intimate and cozy clubs in the United States should not be considered as Cabarets and Cabaret repertoires joints. It disturbs me to see and hear well-established American singers, particularly American female singers associating Broadway with Cabaret. Sarah Bernhard and Edith Piaf would have strongly rejected this association. The majority of so-called cabaret singing in the United States is merely a continuation, a successive collection of songs which imprint the personal cache of a singer who usually is an emotional singer, a sort of a story-teller who usually selects a repertoire and a material that fit the singer’s personality, state of mind, vocal capability and emotional conditions.

A PROTOTYPE OF A CABARET SINGER: THE AMERICAN-FRENCH CABARET SINGER AND DANCER

Joséphine Baker

Photo: The legendary Cabaret Singer, Josephine Baker.

It is very true, that highly respected French singers and stars  like Edith Piaf, Maurice Chevalier, Jean Gabin, Yves Montand, Georges Brassens, Mouloudji and Jacques Brel  as well as famous American stars like Ella Fitzgerald, Liza Minelli, Frank Sinatra and Elton John did perform in French Cabarets like "Le Moulin Rouge" . But, they were never considered as Cabaret Singers. Highly respected Parisian singers and artists did sing for a short time in Cabarets, but all their performances were called “Recital” or “Concert” and never "Cabaret Performance". Almost all their appearances took place at prestigious and very large concert halls, auditoriums and theaters such as “L’Olympia”. The only two superstars of the Cabaret-Song (Cabaret Chanson) were Josephine Baker and Mistinguett. They were purely Cabaret Singers. And believe me, lot of skin was shown to the public. I have devoted two extensive chapters on Baker and Mistinguett in this work. Please refer to. Mistakenly, Marlene Dietrich is sometimes described in the American Cabaret circle as a “Cabaret Singer”. This is totally inaccurate. Dietrich never performed in a Cabaret. Her performance in the “Blue Angel” in which she depicted a cabaret melodramatic artiste/singer was purely a cinematographic performance. Of course, Dietrich loved her role. It did fit perfectly her looks but not her personality. Contrary to the common belief, she hated cabarets. I know this for a fact, because she was a friend of my mother. Once, my mother Alexandra asked Marlene: “Why do you keep all those photos of yours as a Cabaret Queen?” Do you like them so much? It is not you, Marlene!”. And Marlene answered :”Give the public what the public wants.” Marlene Dietrich kept dozens and dozens of her cabaret’s photos, but she never used them as a press kit. Her agents and the American studios' executives  did to her dismay, sort of!

Marlene Dietrich was a very classy, intellectual, refined and high class lady. The female Cabaret Singers, artistes and performers of the early Parisian Cabarets were “Filles du Trottoire” (Street Girls). And quite often, they lacked class and refined looks. Edith Piaf, who was born in the streets of Paris is an exception. Despite, her lack of education and poor knowledge of etiquette, she remained very different from the early French “Boites de Nuit” singers and "diseuses". Piaf never showed skin. Piaf performed in cabarets for a short time because she had to eat. She was extremely poor. Once discovered,  she moved to "non-cabaret" places. She categorically refused to sing in cabarets. The whole world became her stage. In America, cabaret singers still consider Edith Piaf as a cabaret singer. What a big mistake! By American standards, Andrea Marcovicci, Barbara Cook, Anna Bergman, Amanda McBroom, Raquel Bitton and Anne Kerry Ford are “Cabaret Singers”. By French standards, they are “Concert Singers”.  

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