It is not always realised by Englishmen that England is really the
country of the music-hall, the only country where it has taken firm
root and flowered elegantly. There is nothing in any part of Europe to
compare, in their own way, with the Empire and the Alhambra, either as
places luxurious in themselves or as places where a brilliant spectacle
is to be seen. It is true that, in England, the art of the ballet has
gone down; the prima ballerina assoluta is getting rare, the primo uomo
is extinct. The training of dancers as dancers leaves more and more to
be desired, but that is a defect which we share, at the present time,
with most other countries; while the beauty of the spectacle, with us,
is unique. Think of "Les Papillons" or of "Old China" at the Empire, and
then go and see a fantastic ballet at Paris, at Vienna, or at Berlin!
And it is not only in regard to the ballet, but in regard also to the
"turns," that we are ahead of all our competitors. I have no great
admiration for most of our comic gentlemen and ladies in London, but I
find it still more difficult to take any interest in the comic gentlemen
and ladies of Paris. Take Marie Lloyd, for instance, and compare with
her, say, Marguerite Deval at the Scala. Both aim at much the same
effect, but, contrary to what might have been expected, it is the
Englishwoman who shows the greater finesse in the rendering of that
small range of sensations to which both give themselves up frankly. Take
Polin, who is supposed to express vulgarities with unusual success.
Those automatic gestures, flapping and flopping; that dribbling voice,
without intonation; that flabby droop and twitch of the face; all that
soapy rubbing-in of the expressive parts of the song: I could see no
skill in it all, of a sort worth having. The women here sing mainly with
their shoulders, for which they seem to have been chosen, and which are
undoubtedly expressive. Often they do not even take the trouble to
express anything with voice or face; the face remains blank, the voice
trots creakily. It is a doll who repeats its lesson, holding itself up
to be seen.
The French "revue," as one sees it at the Folies-Bergère, done somewhat
roughly and sketchily, strikes one most of all by its curious want of
consecution, its entire reliance on the point of this or that scene,
costume, or performer. It has no plan, no idea; some ideas are flung
into it in passing; but it remains as shapeless as an English pantomime,
and not much more interesting. Both appeal to the same undeveloped
instincts, the English to a merely childish vulgarity, the French to a
vulgarity which is more frankly vicious. Really I hardly know which is
to be preferred. In England we pretend that fancy dress is all in the
interests of morality; in France they make no such pretence, and, in
dispensing with shoulder-straps, do but make their intentions a little
clearer. Go to the Moulin-Rouge and you will see a still clearer
object-lesson. The goods in the music-halls are displayed so to speak,
behind glass, in a shop window; at the Moulin-Rouge they are on the open
booths of a street market.