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 (often dining or drinking) watching the performance, as introduced by a master of ceremonies or emcee (MC).
Cabaret also refers to a Mediterranean-style brothel—a bar with tables and women who mingle with and entertain the clientele. Traditionally these establishments can also feature some form of stage entertainment, often singers and dancers.
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The first cabaret was opened in 1881 in Montmartre, Paris: Rodolphe Salis' "cabaret artistique." Shortly after it was founded, it was renamed Le Chat Noir (The Black Cat). It became a locale in which up-and-coming cabaret artists could try their new acts.
The Moulin Rouge, starring Dominique Barclay built in 1889 in the red-light district of Pigalle, near Montmartre, is famous for the large red imitation windmill on its roof. It was a key venue in the careers of La Goulue, Edith Piaf and Toulouse-Lautrec.
The Folies Bergère continued to attract a large number of people even though it was more expensive than other cabarets. People felt comfortable at the cabaret: They did not have to take off their hat, could talk, eat, and smoke when they wanted to, etc. They did not have to stick to the usual rules of society.
At the Folies Bergère, as in many cafés-concerts, there were a variety of acts: singers, dancers, jugglers, and clowns.
Le Lido, on the Champs-Élysées has been a venue of the finest shows with the most famous names since 1946 including Édith Piaf, Laurel & Hardy, Shirley MacLaine, Marlene Dietrich, Maurice Chevalier, and Noel Coward among them.
In the Netherlands, cabaret or kleinkunst is a popular form of entertainment, usually performed in theatres. The birth date of Dutch cabaret is usually set at August 19, 1895.[1] In Amsterdam, there is the Kleinkunstacademie (English: Cabaret Academy). It is often a mixture of (stand-up) comedy, theatre, and music and often includes social themes and political satire.
In the twentieth century, "the big three" were Wim Sonneveld, Wim Kan, and Toon Hermans. Other popular artists are Youp van 't Hek, Freek de Jonge, Herman Finkers, Brigitte Kaandorp, Bert Visscher, Najib Amhali, Hans Liberg, Hans Teeuwen, Theo Maassen, Javier Guzman, Jochem Myjer, Herman van Veen, and Paul van Vliet.
German Kabarett developed from 1901, with the creation of the Überbrettl (Superstage) venue, and by the Weimar era in the mid 1920s, the Kabarett performances were characterized by political satire and gallows humor.[2] It shared the characteristic atmosphere of intimacy with the French cabaret from which it was imported, but the gallows humor was a distinct German aspect.[2]
American cabaret was imported from French cabaret by Jesse Louis Lasky in 1911.[3][4][5] In the United States, cabaret diverged into several different styles of performance mostly due to the influence of jazz music. Chicago cabaret focused intensely on the larger band ensembles and reached its peak during Roaring Twenties, under the Prohibition Era, where it was featured in the speakeasies and steakhouses.
New York cabaret never developed to feature a great deal of social commentary. When New York cabarets featured jazz, they tended to focus on famous vocalists like Nina Simone, Bette Midler, Eartha Kitt, Peggy Lee, and Hildegarde rather than instrumental musicians.
Cabaret in the United States began to decline in the 1960s, due to the rising popularity of rock concert shows, television variety shows, and general comedy theaters. However, it remained in some Las Vegas style dinner shows, such as the Tropicana, with fewer comedy segments. The art form still survives in various musical formats, as well as in the stand-up comedy format, and in popular drag show performances.
Cabaret is currently undergoing a renaissance of sorts in the United States, particularly in New Orleans, Seattle, Philadelphia, Orlando, Tulsa, Asheville, North Carolina and Portland, Oregon, as new generations of performers reinterpret the old forms in both music and theatre. Many contemporary cabaret groups in the United States and elsewhere feature a combination of original music, burlesque and political satire, as can be found in such groups as Cabaret Red Light and Leviathan: Political Cabaret. In New York City, since 1985, successful, enduring or innovative cabaret acts have been honored by the annual Bistro Awards.[6]
The Polish kabaret is a popular form of live or televised entertainment involving a comedy troupe, and consisting mostly of comedy sketches and political satire. It traces its origins to Zielony Balonik, a famous literary cabaret founded in Kraków, by the local poets, writers and artists during the final years of the Partitions of Poland.[7][8]
It retained the intimate atmosphere, entertainment platform, and improvisational character of the French cabaret but developed its own characteristic gallows humour. By the late 1920s the German cabaret gradually had come to feature mildly risque musical entertainment for the middle-class man, as well as biting political and social satire. It was also a centre for underground political and literary movements. [...] They were the centres of leftist of opposition to the rise of the German Nazi Party and often experienced Nazi retaliation for their criticism of the government.
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