L’Olympia, a music hall on boulevard des Capucines since 1893

L’Olympia, the music hall at 28 boulevard des Capucines, opened on 11 April 1893. It was built by Joseph Oller, founder of the Moulin Rouge, as a two-thousand-seat hall in place of the wooden roller coaster he had set up there, which the police thought a fire risk.

La Goulue, Loïe Fuller and Fregoli were its first stars, followed by Mistinguett and Yvonne Printemps. It became a cinema in 1929. On 5 February 1954 Bruno Coquatrix gave it back to song: Gilbert Bécaud, Édith Piaf, Jacques Brel, Barbara and Johnny Hallyday followed one another, then the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

In 1961, close to bankruptcy, the hall was saved by Édith Piaf, who sang Non, je ne regrette rien here, and by Jacques Tati. Threatened in the early 1990s, the building was demolished and rebuilt in 1997, with its façade and auditorium preserved. The name belonged to Vivendi from 2001 to 2024, then to the Canal+ group.

Between the Madeleine and the Opéra, the oldest music hall still open in Paris hosts concerts and shows, offers guided tours backstage and runs a bistro, Le Petit Olympia, on rue de Caumartin.