Gaston HABREKORN
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Singer.
Gaston Habrekorn wrote some three hundred songs taken up by the stars of the café-concert — Thérésa, Yvette Guilbert, Dranem — before singing them himself on the stages of Montmartre, in the bawdy vein of the pre-1914 years. In 1905, he bought the Bataclan, an ageing hall he reopened with Offenbach's “La Chanson de Fortunio” and filled with tableaux vivants drawn from mythology. His epitaph calls him only a “man of letters”.
The story
Born in Rouen on 31 March 1866, Gaston Habrekorn wrote close to three hundred songs that the stars of the café-concert took up — Thérésa, Yvette Guilbert, Dranem — before singing them himself on the stages of Montmartre.
In 1905 he bought the Bataclan, on the boulevard Voltaire. The hall had aged; he reopened it with Offenbach's “La Chanson de Fortunio”, staged living tableaux drawn from mythology, and brought the crowds back.
He sang in a vein where laughter and smut stood in for good manners — the register of the pre-1914 café-concert, which spoke to an audience of workmen and clerks.
The war emptied the halls and wore the men out. He died on 9 December 1917, at fifty-one, just as the music hall was beginning to replace the café-concert.
He lies in Division 93, avenue Carette, first row, in a family chapel restored with the help of the Fondation du Patrimoine, France's heritage trust. Two marble reliefs there carry the masks of tragedy and comedy, and a stained-glass window a lyre.
The grave
A family chapel, restored with the help of the Fondation du Patrimoine. The façade bears two marble bas-reliefs: the masks of Comedy and Tragedy. Inside, an anonymous stained-glass window depicts a lyre. The epitaph is more sober than the career: “Gaston HABREKORN, man of letters, 31 March 1866 – 9 December 1917” — nothing of the Bataclan, nothing of Montmartre, nothing of the nickname under which he was applauded.
On site, do not miss
The masks of Comedy and Tragedy, carved in the marble of the façade, and the stained-glass window with a lyre glimpsed inside. The inscription, for its part, says only “man of letters” — not a word about singing.
Visitors' questions
Where is Gaston Habrekorn's grave?
In Division 93, avenue Carette, first row: a family chapel recognisable by its two marble bas-reliefs, the masks of Comedy and Tragedy. The Division is also that of the clown Foottit.
FoottitWhat did Habrekorn do at the Bataclan?
He bought it in 1905, on boulevard Voltaire, reopened it with Offenbach's “La Chanson de Fortunio” and staged tableaux vivants drawn from mythology, which brought the crowds back to an ageing hall. Success won him back the audience the cabarets of Montmartre had first given him.
Jean-Baptiste ClémentWhat can be seen on the Habrekorn chapel?
On the façade, two marble bas-reliefs: the masks of Comedy and Tragedy. Inside, an unsigned stained-glass window depicts a lyre. The inscription says simply “homme de lettres” — man of letters — 31 March 1866 – 9 December 1917.
Robert PlanquetteWhat was the café-concert where he sang?
The popular Parisian entertainment of the years before 1914: songs, comic soldier acts, variety turns, an audience of workers and clerks. The music hall of the big venues — Joseph Oller's, the Olympia — supplanted it after the war.
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