Audio recordings
from the Swiss Cabaret Archive

Thanks to the support of Memoriav and the Otto Gamma Foundation, valuable audio documents of the Swiss cabaret scene have been preserved

The project involved the digitisation, long-term archiving and indexing of endangered tape recordings of Swiss cabaret. The audio documents come from the Swiss Cabaret, Chanson and Pantomime Archive in Thun, the most important collection of cabaret in Switzerland, which was donated to the SAPA Foundation (formerly the Swiss Theatre Collection) in 1998.

The last 50 years of Swiss cabaret (cabaret, songwriters, chansonniers, mimes) are recorded with important names such as Margrit Rainer, Ruedi Walter, Elsie Attenhofer, Franz Hohler, César Kaiser, Walter Roderer, Joachim Rittmeyer and formations such as Cabaret Voltaire, Cabaret Cornichon, Bernese Troubadours etc.. From a historiographical point of view, the collection reflects the diversity of the Swiss cabaret scene, and from a media history point of view, the collection is also extremely significant due to the carrier material (cassette formats).

All the recordings are unique and have not been preserved elsewhere. They are – as far as legally possible – accessible via the Swiss Performing Arts Archive and via Memobase.

Click on the image below for an audio sample:

Photo: Tape cassette Cabaret Rotstift
Call number: A-2013-AV-129-DC, © SAPA