Théâtre de l’Alcazar

A forgotten hall, revived

Having come to negotiate door fittings in a building of the Grand Hôtel de Territet, Dad Régné discovered a hall forgotten by all and fell in love with it. The owner wanted to raze it for a car park; he bought and restored it.

Restaurant, museum and theatre

There he founded a restaurant, a museum for his carriages and the Théâtre de l’Alcazar, where dinner-shows, parties and concerts followed one another. The place became one of the temples of Montreux nightlife, like the Villa Dubochet where the decorator already entertained his guests.

Among the regulars of the ground-floor restaurant, one might come across Alain Delon and his companion, the actress Mireille Darc: the couple then rented a flat nearby, at La Margeride, on the heights of Territet.

A night with the Vevey Comedy Festival

One evening during the Vevey Comedy Festival's visit to Montreux, the festival-goers dine at the Bistrot de Paris before gathering at midnight in front of La Calèche, decorator Dad Régné's carriage museum. Children in footman's livery, white wig and tricorn hat welcome the guests with large torches: they are Grace Jones's two sons, Detoy and Paulo, the latter born of her relationship with Jean-Paul Goude. Their faces covered in latex masks, they dance to their mother's music as she holds court atop the stairs in a sedan chair.

Keith Haring is among the guests, recognisable by his backpack decorated with his famous radiant baby; also spotted are Richard Bohringer and his family, the clown Oleg Popov and the artist Roland Topor, whose humanoid heads from the film “Marquis” then haunt the museum, lit by torches among dozens of carriages and hearses. The party goes on until three in the morning, when the police ask for the volume of Grace Jones's latest record to be turned down.

1984-1990: the fire and the rebirth

A major fire ravaged the Alcazar in 1984. Dad Régné persisted: in 1990 the theatre was reborn, with Grace Jones headlining, the singer with whom he had had a relationship.

Fires and rebirth

A second major fire, in 2012, hastened the decline of the place, just as Dad Régné’s health and businesses were failing. The carriage museum has since disappeared, and the Théâtre de l’Alcazar no longer belongs to Dad Régné, who died in 2023. The building is now being renovated: a new life is on the way for this theatre that entered the legend of Montreux nights.