„Britania” Cabaret has in common with the English the name. „Britania” was, in 1909, an exotic name, unique at the Balck Sea in Romania and the owner, a Mişu Georgescu who the press was keeping in discretion, knew about the hit since the opening.
„Britania” Cabaret in Constanţa is the first Vaudeville local in Romania and in Balcani, specially built for entertainment and leisure. A kind of “Moulin Rouge” in a world that still looked groggy at the new fashion.
The architectural style is very modern for its time, an Art Nouveau less complicated without doubt. Only the dome above the former entry and the forlorn character of the undamaged inscription are the witnesses to the beginning. The rectangular windows, geometrical and all very spacious were an innovation of that time.
At the first floor was placed initially, a semi-circular balcony, of decorative fittings, that provide a good view to the intense movement of potential customers. A spacious ground floor with a huge reception hall, provide the bulk of the business. The basement of the building was divided both for the kitchen and dishes as well as numerous artists wardrobe of the troops coming on tour from different cities and countries. First floor only, had a few rooms, where, surprise, no one had any time to rest, no time to sleep.
To the extension of cabaret, was found a nice terrace surrounded by a wrought-iron fence and stone, with tables placed among flowers and ornamental shrubs and a circular ring in the middle for her dance and performances. The vast room on the ground floor offered for steep prices, Romanian cuisine, French and German. The drink was brought directly from the port and came from the French and Italian cellars, from Greek cities and sometimes, when a landlord wanted to pay for advertising a show, the Romanian vineyards, too. The show always began after 21 o’clock and and not infrequently ends at dawn. The entry cost was very high for common salaries: 40 lei per one person but in „Britania” never were shortage of customers. Concerts, balls, mundane meetings, small artistic pieces, trendy sansonet, terrible jazz music, masquerades. All were in the program throughout the week, from Monday to Sunday. The viewers came most often from the world’s financial potentates of Constanta, sailors with good wages which stood in the port, among the foreigners who lived in the city and, when summer came, the fashionable elite of Bucharest. The „Britaniei” fame was so so great that fast trains have often brought on weekends, the half-fashionable part of Bucharest, with their grand. Who would want to miss a moment with the famous Parisian Zurka star, the Viennese star Lizzi Moree with Italians Norina and Leonilda or voluptuous blonde in Warsaw, Malwa Czerkowska??
Glory years of „Britaniei” are placed in unrelenting crazy era between the two World Wars. Musical performances with many artists, included bands, soloists from Bucharest, European and US generously paid by the owners because they came with the latest news: here, in the Old Constanta Charleston was sung on stage for the first times in Romania.
