Polish tango: Chór Dana - Głos z daleka (A Voice From Afar), 1930

Описание: Chór Dana -- Głos z daleka (A Voice from Afar) Tango z rewii „Czysta Wyborowa" teatru Qui pro Quo [Tango from theatre Qui pro Quo revue "A Fine Pure Vodka"] Muz. Stefcia Górska -- Tekst Oldlen, Odeon 1930 (Polish)

NOTE: In the 1920/30s Warsaw was generally considered as "Paris of the Eastern Europe". Its chic, its great-city style and humor, legendary elegance of the Warsaw women as well as the grand gesture and wealth of its plutocratic and aristocratic spheres, made it one of the merriest places in interwar Europe. The night bars and restaurants did not open before 10 pm and their dance-bands were playing for the crowds of guests until the dawn. Yet the most important part of Warsaw's entertainment were its theatres and cabarets, which gave usually two shows per day: in the afternoon and in the evening, the later ending just in time to drive from the theatre to the nearest night club to spend rest of the night with Artur Gold's or Jerzy Petersburski's dance orchestra.

In the 1920s until early 1930s, there were in Warsaw two show-theatres which really counted: one was Morskie Oko -- the gala-revue stage taking its character and image from the Parisian scenes, like Moulin Rouge or Casino de Paris. It's director was the popular lyricist Andrzej Włast -- a slim, well dressed, handsome heart-throb, who used to travel to Paris at least twice a year to see what's new there and which new French ideas could be stolen and taken with him to Warsaw. His target audience was Warsaw's plutocracy and upper middle class.
The second stage, which lived in a fierce and never-ending competition with Morskie Oko, was Qui pro Quo -- a literary cabaret, who gathered the cream of the cream of the best of Polish literary chanson and intelligent humor. The names of grande -- vedettes like Hanka Ordonówna, Mira Ziminska, the revelers Chór Dana or poets like Julian Tuwim (writing cabaret texts under pseudonym Oldlen) and Marian Hemar speak for themselves. Director of Qui pro Quo was a composer Jerzy Boczkowski, who -- on contrary to Andrzej Włast -- was rather short and plump and not very careful about his looks. I do not know if there would have been in the then Warsaw a pair of men, who hated each other more than these two. One of popular anectodes tells about situation, when Boczkowski asks one of the most popular singers Zula Pogorzelska, who performed in Morskie Oko, to give it up and start with Qui pro Quo, with the wages of 6000 zloty per month (in late 1920s it was eqivalent of c. 2500 dollars).
Zula answers: - Ok, but first I must ask director Andrzej Wlast about it.
She goes to Włast and tells him: - Boczkowski gives me 6000 per month if I work for him. What do you say about it?
I'll give you 7000 -- answers Włast, angrily.
OK -- says Pogorzelska -- but first I must speak again to Boczkowski, as I promised.
And she goes back to Boczkowski, who, in his turn, gives her 8000, then Włast -- again rises her wages to 9000 etc. etc., until she ends up in Morskie Oko, with the wages of 12000 zlotys per month (in Poland, it was then the price of 6-cylinder cadillac de Luxe).

Unfortunately, neither of the stages survived the Great Depression. Qui pro Quo closed in 1931, and Morskie Oko -- two years later. Ofcourse, during the next decade, the cast of both theatres continued performing on stages of more or less ephemeric theatres -- such as Banda, Małe Qui pro Quo, Hollywood, Rex, Wielka Rewia -- the whole array of which operated in Warsaw until the outbreak of the 2nd WW in September 1939.