The Théâtre Pigalle () was a theatre in Paris, located in the rue Pigalle in the ninth ''arrondissement''.

History

Opened on June 20, 1929, financed by

Philippe de Rothschild Philippe, Baron de Rothschild (13 April 1902 – 20 January 1988) was a member of the Rothschild banking family who became a Grand Prix motor racing driver, a screenwriter and playwright, a theatrical producer, a film producer, a poet, and one ...

on the estate of his father

Henri de Rothschild Henri James Nathaniel Charles, Baron de Rothschild (26 July 1872 – 12 October 1947) was a French playwright who wrote under the pen names André Pascal, Charles des Fontaines, and P.-L. Naveau. He was also qualified as a physician (although h ...

, the Rothschilds' ambition was to construct the most modern theatre in the world. The architects, Charles Siclis, Henri Just and Pierre Blum, were sent through Europe to research the latest technical developments in theatre design. Graphic artist Jean Carlu designed two well-known posters emphasizing its machine-age image.

André Antoine André Antoine (; 31 January 185823 October 1943) was a French actor, theatre manager, film director, author, and critic who is considered the father of modern mise en scène in France. Biography André Antoine was a clerk at the Paris Gas Uti ...

was hired as art director, and

Gabriel Astruc Gabriel Astruc (14 March 1864 – 7 July 1938) was a French journalist, agent, promoter, theatre manager, theatrical impresario, and playwright whose career connects many of the best-known incidents and personalities of Belle Epoque Paris. He was ...

as manager. Antoine was replaced after two years with Gaston Baty following a disagreement with Rothschild. The 1500-seat venue opened with

Sacha Guitry Alexandre-Pierre Georges "Sacha" Guitry (; 21 February 188524 July 1957) was a French stage actor, film actor, director, screenwriter, and playwright of the boulevard theatre (aesthetic), boulevard theatre. He was the son of a leading French ac ...

's piece, ''Histories of France''. The great German impresario

Max Reinhardt Max Reinhardt (; born Maximilian Goldmann; 9 September 1873 – 30 October 1943) was an Austrian-born Theatre director, theatre and film director, theater manager, intendant, and theatrical producer. With his radically innovative and avant-gard ...

staged a production of ''

Die Fledermaus ' (, ''The Bat'', sometimes called ''The Revenge of the Bat'') is an operetta composed by Johann Strauss II to a German libretto by Karl Haffner and Richard Genée, which premiered in 1874. Background The original literary source for ' was ...

'' here in November 1933 Through the 1930s and the war, directors and performers here included

Louis Jouvet Jules Eugène Louis Jouvet (; 24 December 1887 – 16 August 1951) was a French actor, theatre director and filmmaker. Early life Jouvet was born in Crozon. He had a Stuttering, stutter as a young man and originally trained as a pharmac ...

(the 1931 premiere of ''

Judith The Book of Judith is a deuterocanonical book included in the Septuagint and the Catholic Church, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Christian Old Testament of the Bible but Development of the Hebrew Bible canon, excluded from the ...

'' written by

Jean Giraudoux Hippolyte Jean Giraudoux (; ; 29 October 1882 – 31 January 1944) was a French novelist, essayist, diplomat and playwright. He is considered among the most important French dramatists of the period between World War I and World War II. His wo ...

), the brothers

Émile Isola Émile Isola was born on 4 September 1860 in Blida, Algeria and died in Paris on 17 May 1945. Along with his younger brother Vincent Isola with whose life and career he was closely involved, he was a Magic (illusion), conjurer and Impresario, theatr ...

and

Vincent Isola Vincent Isola (24 July 1862 in Blida, Algeria – 31 August 1947 in Paris) was a French theatre director. Along with his older brother Émile Isola with whose life and career he was closely involved, he was a conjurer and theatre director in P ...

Raymond Rouleau Raymond Rouleau (; 4 June 1904 – 11 December 1981) was a Belgian actor and film director. He appeared in more than 40 films between 1928 and 1979. He also directed 22 films between 1932 and 1981. Rouleau studied at the Royal Conservatory o ...

, and many others. Although the venue had been "furnished with four elevators, an immense switchboard, and a vast amount of complicated theatrical machinery",Louis Jouvet, man of the theatre, Bettina Liebowitz Knapp Jouvet, for one, found it challenging to make it work theatrically. After the failure of Claude Vermorel's ''Thermidor'' in 1948, the theatre closed its doors. The site was sold in 1958, and an automobile garage built on the site.

Sources

photographs and documents (in French)

online description with photographs
* version of this page from French Wikipedia accessed 9/22/2010

References

{{Authority control Former theatres in Paris Theatre Pigalle Theatres completed in 1929