The Chinoiserie music hall on boulevard Voltaire where Colette performed mimodramas in 1911 and 1912, toward the end of her stage career.
The Bataclan opened in 1865 as the Grand Café Chinois, a large café-concert designed by the architect Charles Duval in the Chinoiserie style, with a pagoda roof and a dance hall above the ground-floor theatre. It took its lasting name from Ba-ta-clan, an operetta by Jacques Offenbach, and settled into a long career as a Paris music hall.
Colette appeared here in the last stretch of her years on the stage. On 28 August 1911 she created the mimodrama Aux Bat. d'Af. with Georges Wague, her regular partner and teacher in pantomime, playing a part billed as la Pouliche; the run continued into September, followed by a revival of her pantomime La Chair. She returned in 1912 for the revue Ça grise in the spring and a revival of L'Oiseau de nuit that autumn.
By this point Colette had been performing in music halls since 1906, when she left her first husband and turned to the stage for a living. The Bataclan was one of several houses — with the Moulin Rouge and the Théâtre Marigny — where her revealing costumes and mime roles drew crowds. She left the stage after her marriage to Henry de Jouvenel and her return to full-time writing.
The hall still stands and operates as a concert venue. On 13 November 2015 it was the site of a terrorist attack during a rock concert; it was repaired and reopened in November 2016.
The Bataclan opens as the Grand Café Chinois, a Chinoiserie café-concert designed by Charles Duval.
Colette creates the mimodrama Aux Bat. d'Af. with Georges Wague on 28 August, followed by a revival of La Chair.
She returns for the revue Ça grise in spring and a revival of L'Oiseau de nuit in autumn.
The hall is the site of a terrorist attack on 13 November; it reopens in November 2016.
Yes. She appeared there in 1911 and 1912, near the end of her music-hall career. In August 1911 she created the mimodrama Aux Bat. d'Af. with Georges Wague, and she returned in 1912 for the revue Ça grise.
Mimodramas and revues. Her documented appearances are Aux Bat. d'Af. and a revival of La Chair in 1911, then Ça grise and a revival of L'Oiseau de nuit in 1912.
The mime who was Colette's stage partner and teacher through her music-hall years. He created several pantomimes with her, including Aux Bat. d'Af. at the Bataclan in 1911.
It opened in 1865 as the Grand Café Chinois, a café-concert in the Chinoiserie style designed by the architect Charles Duval, with a pagoda roof. It was named after Offenbach's operetta Ba-ta-clan.
Yes. It remains a working concert hall at 50 boulevard Voltaire. It was the site of a terrorist attack on 13 November 2015 and reopened in November 2016.
Performed here · 1911–1912
Colette performed at the Bataclan across 1911 and 1912, near the end of her music-hall years. In late August 1911 she created the mimodrama Aux Bat. d'Af. with Georges Wague, followed by a revival of her pantomime La Chair; in 1912 she appeared in the revue Ça grise and a revival of L'Oiseau de nuit.
The old aristocratic quarter on the Right Bank that became the centre of gay Paris in the 1990s, at the end of a migration that started in Saint-Germain.
Visit the place
The inside-out building of 1977 that houses the Musée national d'art moderne, closed for a five-year renovation since September 2025.
Visit the placeThe Friday Letter
The cafés, studios, and walk-up flats where the work was made — one story from the map in every letter.
