On the 20th of June 1819, a boy named Jacob Offenbach was born in the German city of Cologne. He entered the world as the second son and seventh child of Isaac Juda Offenbach Eberst and his wife Marianne Rindskopf. His father had abandoned bookbinding to become an itinerant cantor and violinist in cafés. The family name came from Offenbach am Main, where Isaac had officially adopted it in 1808. By the time Jacob turned nine, he took up the cello under the tutelage of Bernhard Breuer. Three years later, young Jacob performed pieces so technically difficult that they terrified his master. He played alongside his brother Julius on violin and sister Isabella on piano at local dance halls and inns. In November 1833, the fourteen-year-old Jacob and his eighteen-year-old brother Julius left their provincial home for Paris. They traveled with their father and received letters of introduction to Luigi Cherubini, director of the Paris Conservatoire. Cherubini initially refused admission due to their age and nationality but eventually listened to Jacob play. He stopped him after a short while and declared, "Enough, young man, you are now a pupil of this Conservatoire." Both boys were admitted and adopted French versions of their names: Jules and Jacques.
Salons And Satire
After leaving the conservatoire in December 1834, Offenbach found himself free from academic constraints but also free from steady income. He secured temporary jobs in theatre orchestras before gaining permanent employment as a cellist at the Opéra-Comique in 1835. His pay was frequently docked for playing pranks during performances. On one occasion, he and the principal cellist played alternate notes of the printed score. On another, they sabotaged colleagues' music stands to make them collapse mid-performance. Despite these antics, his earnings allowed him to study with Louis-Pierre Norblin, a celebrated cellist. Fromental Halévy gave him composition lessons and wrote to Isaac that the young man would become a great composer. Between 1839 and 1844, Offenbach built a reputation performing in fashionable Parisian salons. One such salon belonged to Madeleine-Sophie, where he met Hérminie d'Alcain, the fifteen-year-old daughter of a Carlist general. They fell in love and became engaged in 1843. To extend his fame beyond Paris, he toured France and Germany. In September 1843, he performed in Cologne alongside Liszt. The following year, he embarked on an English tour. There, he appeared with Felix Mendelssohn, Joseph Joachim, Michael Costa, and Julius Benedict. The Era reported his debut performance excited both wonder and pleasure. The Illustrated London News noted a royal command performance before Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. He returned to Paris with enhanced reputation and bank balance. His marriage to Hérminie took place on the 14th of August 1844 when she was seventeen and he was twenty-five.