LAS VEGAS — It outlasted Elvis, the Rat Pack, the mob, the Atomic Age and the Stardust, Dunes and Sands. It helped cement the showgirl as Sin City ambassador — the mayor often appears with one on each arm — and as pop culture shorthand for glittery, sexy Las Vegas.
But months shy of its 50th year, “Les Folies Bergere” will close soon, a victim of slumping revenues and changing tastes.
When it opened on Christmas Eve 1959, the Tropicana’s topless review embodied all that was naughty and daring in Vegas. But, in time, Vegas became much racier than the “Folies.” Cirque du Soliel performers disrobe in “Zumanity.” In the show “Bite,” vampires bare fangs and breasts. Even female tourists sunbathe topless at hotel pools. In a way, “Folies” history mirrors that of Vegas: a long stretch of success, then hard times.
Their time in “Folies” ties them to a Vegas that brought glamour to the masses. These days, the show’s demise mostly merits a shrug in this recession-battered town.
The 1950s dawned with Clark County as an outpost with less than 50,000 souls and a handful of Western-themed gambling halls, although the backwater’s ambition was as immense as the Mojave Desert.
Its first topless production, “Minsky’s Follies,” opened in 1957 and was advertised as “riotous” and “eye-popping.” The true forerunner to modern showgirl productions, “Lido de Paris,” arrived a year later at the Stardust.
In the 1960s, showgirls became civic icons. They presided over golf course openings and smiled on magazine covers. For a two-drink minimum, they could be ogled in casinos all over town.
“This was a place where you could find things that were nowhere else,” says Su Kim Chung, an archivist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “And where else could you find a 6-foot-tall woman with feathers sprouting off her back and fishnet stockings and a string bikini?”
“Folies,” the Las Vegas Review-Journal said recently “has so long been denied funding that it tumbled from the top tier of Las Vegas attractions years ago and now hovers in an odd region.”
Casino operator Tropicana Entertainment LLC filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May.
This night, Svetlana Failla struggles to hold back tears. “I want two more years of sparkle and glitter,” she says.
Although performing still inspires her, Failla is preparing for her next act. She’s been attending fashion design school and dreams of selling couture gowns and competing on “Project Runway.” But still she hopes someone will demand a “Folies” encore.
“When I go on stage, I disappear,” Failla says, her hands flying and her words lightly accented. “I always pick someone in the audience and perform for them.”
The show will strut in its final plumed and sequined performance, on March 28.
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