Jacques Offenbach

Master of operetta and king of entertainment during the Second Empire, the "Mozart of the Champs-Élysées" enjoyed unbroken success on stage, from his first triumph with Orpheus in the Underworld to his latest with Les Contes d'Hoffmann. A French composer of German origin, Jakob Offenbach was born into an Ashkenazi Jewish family in Cologne, then in Prussia, on June 20, 1819. His father Isaac, a synagogue cantor, violinist and music teacher, introduced him to the instrument before entrusting him to the care of cellist Bernhard Breuer. A gifted pupil, he formed a trio that performed in local inns with his sister Isabella on piano and his brother Julius on violin. In 1833, the two brothers were sent to Paris to study at the Conservatoire. Despite age and nationality barriers, they were both admitted after audition by the director, Luigi Cherubini, and henceforth took the first names Jules and Jacques. The elder, who was already giving lessons, was to become a well-known violinist and conductor, sometimes leading the works of his brother, who dropped out after the first year. Remaining in Paris, however, Jacques Offenbach found a permanent position as cellist in the Opéra-Comique orchestra in 1835, but his habitual mischief led to salary deductions. At the same time, he continued to study the instrument with Louis Norblin, and composition and orchestration with Fromental Halévy. He began writing short pieces and songs, either on his own or in collaboration with pianist Friedrich von Flotow, with whom he performed at fashionable salons and on tour. He became involved with Herminie d'Alcain, the daughter of a general, whom he married on August 14, 1844, converting to Catholicism in the process. The tour he undertook in England with other musicians, including Felix Mendelssohn and Joseph Joachim, was hailed by the local press. In Paris, his scores sold well, and he gave his first performances when the revolution of 1848 led to the deposing of King Louis-Philippe. Back in Paris after repatriating his wife and daughter to Cologne, he was appointed musical director of the Comédie-Française by Arsène Houssaye, and had a small orchestra at his disposal to liven up the intermissions of plays, creating arias such as "La Chanson de Fortunio " for Musset's Le Chandelier (1850). After previous attempts, he wrote three operettas, Pépito (1853), Luc et Lucette (1854) and Oyayaie ou la Reine des îles (1855), which was presented at the Folies-Nouvelles, in the absence of the Opéra-Comique, which remained deaf to his requests. In 1855, Offenbach decided to open his own theater on the Champs-Élysées, the smaller Bouffes-Parisiens. He combined the functions of manager, composer and troupe leader. No fewer than twenty one-act operettas with different librettists were staged, including Les Deux Aveugles, Le Violoneux, which revealed his favorite singer Hortense Schneider, and Ba-ta-clan, before the huge success of the parodic opéra bouffe Orphée aux enfers, with its famous infernal galop or "French can-can" (October 21, 1858). Permanently relocated to the Salle Choiseul after alternating between two theaters depending on the season, the Bouffes-Parisiens attracted a large audience with Geneviève de Brabant (1859), but its creator spent all his money on productions and decoration. In 1860, Offenbach received the Légion d'honneur from Napoleon III and French nationality. Between two operettas, he composed his only ballet, Le Papillon , which premiered at the Opéra, while Barkouf was accepted at the Opéra-Comique. In 1862, he handed over the management of his theater, for which he continued to compose. Premiered at the Théâtre des Variétés on December 17, 1864, La Belle Hélène became an international success, performed worldwide between the setbacks of Die Rheinnixen at the Vienna Opera (1864) and Robinson Crusoé at the Opéra-Comique (1867). With his regular librettists Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy (nephew of his former teacher), he successively produced Barbe-bleue and La Vie parisienne with an anthology of arias (1866), La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein and its famous "Ah que j'aime les militaires" (1867), La Périchole (1868) and Les Brigands (1869), all of which were perennial successes. Offenbach's heyday in Paris came to an end with the 1870 war and the fall of the Second Empire. In 1873, after staging Le Roi Carotte with a libretto by Victorien Sardou, he took over the Théâtre de la Gaîté Lyrique, where he revived Orphée aux enfers and Geneviève de Brabant. However, his productions remained expensive, and after selling his shares, he mortgaged his future royalties. Fortunately, the fairytale Le Voyage dans la lune was a success in 1876. Offenbach bailed out during a tour of the United States, where he gave some forty concerts. On his return, he wrote Le Docteur Ox (1877), Madame Favart (1878) and La Fille du tambour-major (1879), while working on an adaptation of Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann's fantasy tales with his librettist Jules Barbier, based on the latter's play with Michel Carré. But suffering from gout, he was unable to complete the orchestration of the work in which he had invested most of his time, and died on October 5, 1880, aged 61. Completed by Ernest Guiraud, Les Contes d'Hoffmann was staged at the Opéra-Comique on February 10, 1881, and features his famous barcarolle "Belle nuit, ô nuit d'amour", borrowed from Les Fées du Rhin of 1864. Like many of his other works, it continues to delight opera houses.

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