«The French mermaids were loudly applauded…»: feminine subjects and male desire in Lisbon’s Café-Concert (1857-1876)

In Portuguese historiography, the years between 1851 and 1868 are known as ‘Regeneraç o’ (Regeneration). is was a time when the economic and the modernizing goals of the conservative right-wing governments that ascended to power during that period superseded the progressive democratic values at the core of the Portuguese Liberal experiment initiated in 1820. Su ce it to say, this was the scenery in which the bourgeoisie completed its ascension as the ruling class in Portuguese society. Regarding the cultural
panorama, the a rmation of the bourgeois status translated into the emergence of multiple philharmonic societies and numerous businesses dedicated to entertainment. Events like balls, theatrical performances, and concerts, held at public and semi-public venues began pullulating in Lisbon (and other major cities) thus providing alternative leisure spaces to this capital’s upper class inhabitants. Between 1857 and 1876, the Café- Concert in downtown Lisbon was one of these cases. Departing from the reception in the printed press and examples of songs presented at this Café-Concert — the rst of its kind in Portugal — my paper will focus on representations of women in and around this institution. Deprived from the social and political genealogy of the original Parisian café-concert, the Lisbon’s counterpart invested, since its opening, in expressive practices attuned to bourgeois tastes and values. I will approach this matter discussing the idea that the Portuguese appropriation of the French café-concert served as one among many other platforms where male dominance was revalidated in the country’s transition to a bourgeois’ society. Not only were women subjects appearing in the ‘chansonnettes’ characterized as objects of male desire, but also the printed press used metaphoric gures such as the mythical ‘mermaids’ to describe the singers actually working in this hall. While analysing these materials, I will argue that, in this context, women functioned has a prop in staging the masculine identity of the target-spectators of the Café-Concert: bourgeois men.