Photo by F. Berkeley Smith
MLLE. ODETTE DULAC AT HOME
When you hear Legay you will have heard an artist whose stirring songs, like his “Mon Cheval” and “Les Pieds Devant,” create a furor wherever he sings them. Legay has a faculty of making you feel the roar of battle. He sings with fire and virility, and his personality fills the room.
In many of the cabarets it is the custom to give gala matinées and gala evenings with more celebrities than usual on the program. A grand tombola or lottery takes place at the close of the performance, the receipts being given as a testimonial benefit to one of the singers. It is needless to say the prizes offered by these good bohemians were purchased for as little as possible: a two-franc bottle of champagne, their own posters tied up with a ribbon, copies of their songs, etc., etc. Yet the rollicking spirit in which these things are praised by the poet auctioneers, and the fact that the proceeds are doing good to one of their number in need, amply repay the loss to one’s pocket.
Besides these gala matinées, classic evenings are given, classic poems are read, and the ancient songs of Provence and ballads of the sixteenth century are sung by the same chansonniers who the night before may have amused you with the “Voyage of Madame Humbert” and other parodies.
Pastel by Léandre
Photo by F. Berkeley Smith
THE POET JEHAN RICTUS
The poet Jehan Rictus has been known for years in the cabarets of the Butte and in those of the rive gauche.