The Olympia Paris: the golden years

The?Olympia is a concert venue in the?9th arrondissement?of Paris that was opened in 1893 by one of the two co-creators of the?Moulin Rouge?venue, and that saw many opera, ballet, and?music hall?performances. Theatrical performances declined in the late 1920s and the Olympia was converted into a movie theatre, before re-opening as a venue in 1954 with?Bruno Coquatrix?as executive director. Coquatrix had decided to have the exterior facade of the venue redone, thus making it possible to announce the names of the artists in capital letters updated every day below the signage of the Olympia. The lettering "Olympia" and the artists' names are illuminated in red neon lighting.

Edith Piaf?achieved great acclaim at the Olympia giving several series of recitals from January 1955 until October 1962. At the end of her life and in poor health, she made two performances per evening for three months. Before going to the United States of America,?the Beatles?performed for eighteen days, presenting two and sometimes three shows a day. They were staying at the?Hotel George V?and after returning at the end of their first day, they were told that "I Want to Hold Your Hand" had reached number one in America. In 1966,?Jacques Brel?made farewell to the audience on the Olympia stage.?

Dalida?was the most commercially successful solo performer at the Olympia where she would perform every three to four years, singing for 30 nights in row, completely sold-out, in 1961, 1964, 1967, 1971, 1974, 1977, and her last appearance was in 1981. Two years after in 1983, the hall went bankrupt.

Attentive to Arab music, and particularly to the divas who fascinate a large cosmopolitan audience, Coquatrix invited Umm Kulthum and then, a decade later, Fayrouz and Warda to sing there. These exceptional performances will remain in the history of Olympia.

The announcement of Umm Kulthum on the Olympia program is an event. She performs there on November 13 and 15 of the year 1967, the only two recitals given by "El Sett" outside the Arab-Muslim world.?Another had been planned for Moscow in?September 1970 but?canceled due to the death of Gamal Abdel Nasser. “She was my madness”,?Coquatrix?says. He pays a high price to carry out a formidable media and commercial operation.?Umm Kulthum obtains the record sum of?10 million old French francs per evening which she will donate to the Egyptian army. The Olympia is full, and the ticket is sold for 2,000 francs on the black market.

In addition to a classic Parisian audience, including Charles Aznavour and Enrico Macias, many Arabs, among whom immigrant workers, took their place in the packed hall. On the nights of the concerts, the queues stretched on the main boulevards. Several thousand went to the Olympia as one goes to Mecca. Late at night, after several hours of the recital, ten times more people than in the room are waiting outside. The?President of the Republic Charles De Gaulle sends Umm Kulthum a telegram of congratulations. Coquatrix?says: "I've never seen that, even with rock stars".

Representatives of another generation, Fayrouz and Warda will outshine at the Olympia a decade later. Umm Kulthum is no longer of this world, nor is Bruno Coquatrix. Yet it was he who undertook to program the two icons in “his” hall, but his heart betrayed him on April 1, 1979. Fayrouz was scheduled on May 3 and 4.

Fayrouz is at a turning point in her private life and her career. It was the last time that her husband Assi Rahbani would conduct the orchestra before their separation. The diva arouses emotion when she evokes the tearing of Lebanon which has been plunged into war since 1975 and for many years. But, well beyond the country of which she is the emblem, Fayrouz represents the entire Arab world. Jacques and Bernadette Chirac, Dalida, Georges Moustaki, and Mireille Mathieu … attend her concerts and give her a warm welcome and a 10-minute standing ovation that she will remember all her life.?The concert was filmed and remains, till?date, one of the masterpieces of Fairouz during her golden journey. Later that year,?Fairuz records?her?Wahdon?(Alone) album in Beirut and Athens, with her son Ziad?Rahbani, the most influential Lebanese artist during the Lebanese war.?Their collaboration?illustrates?her move from mainstream Arabic song towards a disco-funk-ballad approach, impregnated by Stateside influences. These natures are conveniently split between?the songs,?composed,?and arranged by?Ziad, who creates a strong foundation from which his mother’s voice vaults higher and higher.

A few months later, on September 11, Warda performed on stage at the Olympia, presented by Charles Aznavour.?Warda was born in Puteaux, on the western outskirts of Paris,?she used to sing?in her father's Tam Tam Cafe in the capital's Latin quarter at the age of 11?when?she attracted the attention of a radio producer, and through broadcasting became extremely popular with young listeners from North Africa.?The family then moved to Beirut where?Warda performed nationalist and popular songs in Hamra's cafes and?clubs and?was soon spotted?and?invited to Cairo.?There she caught the eye of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, the champion of pan-Arab nationalism,?who?invited her to appear alongside the leading singer Abdel Halim Hafez in the?operetta?Al Watan al Akbar (The Greater Nation). To go back to the Olympia, success is there for the Algerian singer at the height of her career who returns to Paris where she was born and grew up. A queue near the Olympia will make many fans disappointed.

Following the death of Bruno,?his wife Paulette and Patricia, their daughter, managed the operations of the Olympia. But things were never the same. The Olympia was threatened with demolition in the early 1990s but was saved by a preservation order. As part of an extensive renovation project, the entire edifice was demolished and rebuilt in 1997. The venue's facade and its interior were preserved.?Vivendi?acquired the Olympia in 2001. It was again used for movie projection and was available to rent for artists willing to showcase or hold concerts. The name might be glittering still, but the reality is far different. The magic might still revolve around the past and the good old days. The era of true icons is over. That was another?time.