A venerable centenarian
According to its new owner, Jean-Marc Dumontet, the Gaveau room, opened in 1907 in 8e Parisian district and renowned for its classical music programming, would have “need a new lease of life”, the one from “modernity”. The producer, already owner of five theaters in the capital, known for monitoring the careers of comedians Alex Lutz, Nicolas Canteloup and Panayotis Pascot, acquired the premises in October for 8 million euros. It intends to diversify the offer, by offering “acoustic concerts of headliners, one-on-ones and comedy”he explained to Figaro. He also wants, at the same time, to redo the facade of the building, classified as a historic monument.
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A little Sarkozy music
Classical music lovers from western Paris are not the only ones flocking to the Gaveau room. Those of Nicolas Sarkozy – they are sometimes the same ones – also have their habits there. Once elected president of the UMP in 2004, the aspiring candidate for the Elysée in fact gathered there every month the new activists of his party, the influx of which was to testify to the inevitable nature of his imminent victory. The opportunity to regularly affirm facing them his will to « rupture » with Jacques Chirac. Three years later, on May 6, 2007, he delivered his first speech as President of the Republic from the Gaveau Room, welcoming the fact that “the French people have[it] chosen to break with the ideas, habits and behaviors of the past”.
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A right-wing partition
Before Nicolas Sarkozy, the Gaveau room was the scene of other political meetings – mainly on the right. In 1958, the Association of Combatants of the French Union, in favor of maintaining Algeria in the colonial fold, convened its general assembly there and defended “a regenerated France, a clean France”, thus fueling his factious reputation. Twenty-five years later, in 1983, the Union of Youth for Progress, a Gaullist movement close to the RPR, organized a “opposition party” to François Mitterrand and “the incompetence, inconsistency and sectarianism of the social-communist power”. A very different register from those of the Grand Orient of France and the Grand Feminine Lodge of France, two Masonic obediences having also held conferences there.
An old piano showcase
With its thousand seats, its majestic (but unusable) organ and its acoustics reputed to be the best in Paris, the Salle Gaveau also hosted galas and concerts in support of French soldiers and the wounded of the two world wars that tore apart the 20th century.e century.
The public then passed through the hall, where the pianos sold by Etienne Gaveau, who sponsored the construction of the room, were on display and were supposed to serve as a showcase. A purpose now forgotten, part of these spaces having been converted into meeting rooms.
