The Théâtre le Ranelagh is a theater located at 5 rue des Vignes, in the

16th arrondissement The 16th arrondissement of Paris (''XVIe arrondissement'') is one of the 20 arrondissements of the capital city of France. In spoken French, this arrondissement is referred to as ''seizième''. The arrondissement includes part of the Arc de Tr ...

of Paris, close to the Ranelagh Gardens.

History

In 1755, Alexandre Jean Joseph Le Riche de La Pouplinière, a '' ferme générale'' under

Louis XV Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reache ...

, constructed a theater at the entrance to his estate in Boulainvilliers. At the time the estate was on the outskirts of Paris, well outside city walls. As a frequent patron of the arts he would gather a group of artists and intellectuals around him. Some of those he patronized were

Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his ...

Quentin de la Tour Maurice Quentin de La Tour (5 September 1704 – 17 February 1788) was a French Rococo portraitist who worked primarily with pastels. Among his most famous subjects were Voltaire, Rousseau, Louis XV of France, Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour. ...

Van Loo Van Loo is a Dutch toponymic surname, meaning "from the forest clearing". People with this surname include: ;A family of painters : *Jacob van Loo (1614–1670), Dutch painter *Louis-Abraham van Loo (1653-1712), Dutch-born French painter, son o ...

and Johann Wenzel Anton Stamitz. Despite Pouplinière's support of the arts, the theater on his estate was the least celebrated.

Jean-François Marmontel Jean-François Marmontel (11 July 1723 – 31 December 1799) was a French historian, writer and a member of the Encyclopédistes movement. Biography He was born of poor parents at Bort, Limousin (today in Corrèze). After studying with th ...

said that the plays were rather unexceptional but not quite bad enough not to applaud. However, because the plays were often followed by a great dinner and attended by the most prominent thinkers in Paris, the evenings were well attended by noblemen, despite the mediocrity of the entertainment. The estate was left intact during the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...

but in 1815 the gardens of the property were destroyed by the English. In 1826 the estate was sold to speculators who created a new neighborhood called "Boulainvilliers" out of the estate's grounds. The land was fragmented into numerous plots, one of which was bought by Louis Mors who built another theater in 1894 on the site of Poupliniére's old theater. Mors was a music enthusiast who encouraged the emergence of musical themes in the early nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The theater was inaugurated 25 April 1900 by

Camille Chevillard Paul Alexandre Camille Chevillard (14 October 1859 – 30 May 1923) was a French composer and conductor. Biography He was born in Paris. He conducted the Orchestre Lamoureux in the premieres of Claude Debussy's '' Nocturnes'' (1900 and 1901) ...

with an 80 musician orchestra as well as by others such as

Bizet Georges Bizet (; 25 October 18383 June 1875) was a French composer of the Romantic era. Best known for his operas in a career cut short by his early death, Bizet achieved few successes before his final work, ''Carmen'', which has become on ...

, Terrasse, and

Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...

who all performed there during its early years. In 1931, the hall became a theater for artistic films, quickly becoming a cinematographic Mecca, frequented by personalities such as

Gérard Philipe Gérard Philipe (born Gérard Albert Philip, 4 December 1922 – 25 November 1959) was a prominent French actor who appeared in 32 films between 1944 and 1959. Active in both theatre and cinema, he was, until his early death, one of the main ...

and

Marcel Carné Marcel Albert Carné (; 18 August 1906 – 31 October 1996) was a French film director. A key figure in the poetic realism movement, Carné's best known films include '' Port of Shadows'' (1938), ''Le Jour Se Lève'' (1939), '' The Devil's Envoys ...

. The director of the cinema for 20 years, Madona Bouglione, developed musical programs, a weekend showing of a circus movie and a wide array of other programming. In 1977 the hall and decoration were added to the list of '' Monuments Historique.''

References

{{Coord, 48.8546, 2.2776, display=title 1894 establishments in France Buildings and structures completed in 1894 Buildings and structures in the 16th arrondissement of Paris Monuments historiques of Paris Theatres in Paris