2025 № 1 (52)

UDC 7.067; 7.049.2; 741.5

LBC 85.19; 85.36

DOI: 10.51678/2226-0072-2025-1-288-313 

For cit.: Martynova D.O. “Life in a Café-concert: A Study of Manners, 1894, by E. Ouvrard and L. Ouri: The Role of Music and Audiovisualizations in the French Entertainment Industry of the Second Half of the 19th Century. Hudozhestvennaya kul’tura [Art & Culture Studies], 2025, no. 1, pp. 288–313. https://doi.org/10.51678/2226-0072-2025-1-288-313. (In Russian)

Martynova Daria O. 

PhD (in Art History), Junior Researcher, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Senior Lecturer, Institute of History, St. Petersburg State University, 5 Mendeleevskaya Line, St. Petersburg, 5199034, Russia 

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0426-6458

ResearcherID: AAK-1891-2020

d.o.martynova@gmail.com 

Life in a Café-concert: A Study of Manners, 1894, by E. Ouvrard and L. Ouri: The Role of Music and Audiovisualizations in the French Entertainment Industry of the Second Half of the 19th Century 

Abstract. The article is part of a scientific project dedicated to the study of the reception of musical practices in visual culture. The article analyzes the book by the French composer and performer of café-concerts Eloi Ouvrard (1855–1938) Life in a Café-concert: A Study of Manners written in 1894 to reveal the hypothesis of the connection between the musical accompaniment of café-concert numbers and the role of artists. The analysis of this book made it possible to identify the specifics of the music of café-concerts, the main musical instruments, and the names of composers and performers of café-concerts which are little known to both Russian and foreign researchers. Not only did Ouvrard classify the genres of songs in the book, but he also analysed the role of the new form of cultural spectacle in the forming ‘industry of stars’ in the second half of the 19th century. The materials of this article could significantly expand the understanding of the history of the musical culture of the French café-concert. The main purpose of the article is to study the reception of the interaction of musical culture and the sign language of café-concerts on the pages of the book by E. Ouvrard. To analyse café-concerts as an entertainment industry, some fragments of Ouvrard’s texts were evaluated through Ch. Baudelaire’s concept of ‘modernity’ and L. Mulvey’s concept of ‘being-under-the-gaze’. This was necessary in order to show the uniqueness of the café-concert among other phenomena of entertainment culture. The analysis and critical understanding of Ouvrard’s text allowed identifying the main artists of café-concerts, Paulus and Yvette Guilbert, and learning about the specifics of creating lyrics and music for the numbers of popular artists. The information is supplemented by other publications by French critics on the music of café-concerts, as well as by the analysis of the reception of musical and dance practices in Louis Ouri’s illustrations for the book. 

Keywords: the entertainment industry, reception of musical practices, café-concert, theory of reception in art, intermedia studies, visual communications 

The research was carried out with the financial support of the Russian Science Foundation within the framework of scientific grant No. 23–28–01577 “Reception of Musical Practices and Its Representation in Visual Culture of the Second Half of the 19th — First Half of the 20th Centuries”. 

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Received 20.11.2024 

Accepted 01.12.2024