Jacques Offenbach

• 1. A Cello From Cologne

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  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.

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• 2. Salons And Satire

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  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.

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• 3. The Bouffes-Parisiens

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  In 1855, Offenbach leased a small theatre called Salle Lacaze located in the Champs-Élysées. It could hold no more than 300 people. This venue suited licensing laws that limited him to three speaking or singing characters per piece. Full-length works were impossible under these restrictions. During the summer and autumn of 1855, he presented over two dozen one-act operettas. The opening night occurred on the 5th of July 1855 after less than a month of frantic preparation. Among those recruited at short notice was Ludovic Halévy, nephew of Offenbach's early mentor. Ludovic collaborated with Offenbach on 21 works over the next 24 years. One hit from the opening programme was "The Two Blind Men," a comedy about beggars feigning blindness. Another success was "The Village Fiddler," which made Hortense Schneider a star at age 22. She became a key member of his company throughout much of his career. In winter seasons, the troupe moved to the Théâtre des Variétés. Legislation enacted in March 1861 prevented using both theatres simultaneously. His first full-length operetta, Orpheus in the Underworld, premiered in October 1858. It featured scenery by an unnamed designer, lavish costumes, twenty principals, and a large chorus. An outraged review by Janin in Le Figaro condemned its profanity but inadvertently generated massive public interest. The piece ran for 228 performances when 100 nights was considered successful. Napoleon III commanded a performance in April 1860. Despite many later successes, Orpheus remained his most popular work.

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• 4. Golden Age Of Satire

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  The 1860s marked Offenbach's most successful decade. At the beginning of 1860, he received French citizenship through Napoleon III's personal command. The following year, he was appointed chevalier of the Legion of Honour. This appointment scandalized members of the musical establishment who resented such honors for a composer of light opera. In 1864, he wrote four major operettas: Orphée aux enfers, La Belle Hélène, La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein, and Les Contes d'Hoffmann. Halévy served as librettist for all four alongside Henri Meilhac. Hortense Schneider played the title role in Orphée aux enfers despite being notoriously temperamental. Rehearsals were tempestuous due to feuding singers and censorial concerns about imperial satire. La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein premiered two days after the opening of the Paris Exhibition in 1867. King William of Prussia attended with Otto von Bismarck. Halévy noted in his diary that Bismarck helped double their takings while war approached. By late 1869, Les Brigands leaned more toward romantic comic opera than earlier ebullient styles. It was well-received but less frequently revived than his best-known works. In October 1868, La Périchole marked a transition with less exuberant satire and more human romantic interest. Gammond called it Offenbach's "most charming" score. Despite critical grumbling, it made good profit and was quickly produced across Europe and both North and South America.

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• 5. Exile And Tours

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  When the Franco-Prussian War broke out in 1870, Offenbach fled Paris hurriedly from Ems and Wiesbaden. He arranged for his family to move to San Sebastián in northern Spain before joining them shortly afterward. His music became suddenly unpopular in France because he was universally associated with Napoleon III's fallen regime. Anti-German sentiments swept the country despite his French citizenship. His birthplace in Cologne made him suspect. La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein was banned due to its antimilitarist satire. Meanwhile, Offenbach found success abroad. Between 1870 and 1872, London's Gaiety Theatre produced fifteen of his works. Richard D'Oyly Carte presented La Périchole at the Royalty Theatre in 1875. By end of 1871, life returned to normal in Paris, and he ended voluntary exile. New works like Les Cent Vierges (1872) and Barbe-Bleue (1873) were modestly profitable. Lavish revivals of earlier successes did better financially. In July 1873, he took over management of Théâtre de la Gaîté. A spectacular revival proved highly profitable but a new version of another work failed. Financial disaster struck after collaborating on Victorien Sardou's play in 1874. He sold interests in the theatre and mortgaged future royalties. A successful US tour in 1876 helped recover losses. Beginning with a concert at Gilmore's Garden before 8,000 people, he gave over 40 concerts in New York and Philadelphia. To circumvent Sunday entertainment laws, he disguised operetta numbers as liturgical pieces advertising "Grand Sacred Concerts." Local authorities withdrew authorization last minute. At Booth's Theatre, he conducted Amusements , The Opera Bouffe. He returned to France in July 1876 with handsome profits.

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• 6. Final Masterpiece

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  In his final years, Offenbach struggled to complete The Tales of Hoffmann based on a stage play by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré. Suffering from gout since the 1860s, often carried into theatres in chairs, he was conscious of failing health. He expressed desperation saying to his dog Kleinzach that he would give everything for the premiere. He died in Paris on the 5th of October 1880 at age 61. Cause of death was heart failure brought on by acute gout. Ernest Guiraud completed orchestration with assistance from Offenbach's eighteen-year-old son Auguste. Major changes and cuts were made per director Carvalho's demands. The opera premiered at Opéra-Comique on the 10th of February 1881. His last comedy, Ba-ta-clan, remained unfinished; Léo Delibes orchestrated it for performance on the 30th of October 1880. A state funeral followed with distinguished men accompanying him amid general public sympathy. He lies buried in Montmartre Cemetery. Critics initially doubted whether any works would survive. The Times partially reconsidered after Hoffmann's production but predicted lighter compositions would pass out of memory. Friedrich Nietzsche called him both an artistic genius and clown yet noted nearly every work achieved half a dozen moments of wanton perfection. Debussy rated operettas higher than Hoffmann stating "The one work in which [Offenbach] tried to be serious met with no success." Thomas Beecham restored Hoffmann to mainstream repertoire through a 1910 London production where it has remained ever since.

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