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1819-1880
Dramatis personae: characters and connections in the life of Offenbach
Isaac Juda Eberst: his father’s family name in Offenbach am Main, Germany. When Isaac moved to Cologne, he was known there as “Der Offenbacher” (the man from Offenbach), and by the time he established a career (bookbinder, music teacher, synagogue cantor) and family (ten children) in Cologne, the family name had become Offenbach.
John Mitchell: concert presenter in London. Second husband of Offenbach’s mother-in-law. Offenbach’s success in England helped establish operetta as a genre there.
Die Rheinnixen: The Rhine-fairies (1864), Offenbach’s patriotic, pacifist mermaid opera, and the source of the famous Barcarolle in Tales of Hoffmann.
Cancan: Offenbach’s most famous tune, actually called “Galop infernal,” from Orpheus in the Underworld, 1858. Derived from an Algerian dance form, cancans reached Paris in the 1830s. In the twentieth century, Franz Lehar composed a cancan for The Merry Widow, 1905, and Cole Porter composed one for Can-Can, 1953.
Portrait of the Artist
Jacob Offenbach, as he was known as a child, played trios in Cologne bars with his violinist brother Julius and pianist sister Isabella. In 1833 their father took Jacob and Julius to Paris for further study, where they joined a synagogue choir, their names became Jacques and Jules, and they continued studying and performing as a cellist and violinist.
As a cello virtuoso, Offenbach performed with Anton Rubinstein (Paris, 1841), Franz Liszt (Cologne, 1843), and Joseph Joachim and Felix Mendelssohn (London, 1844).
As an entrepreneur-conductor of the Bouffes-Parisiens (1855-62), Offenbach led works by Mozart, Rossini, Adolphe Adam, and Léo Delibes. He sponsored a competition for young composers in 1856, won by Bizet and Lecocq.
Offenbach’s output as a composer includes about 100 operettas, vaudevilles, and opéra-comiques, many of which incorporated myths, fairy tales, and satire, including:
- 1858 (revised 1874): Orphée aux enfers (“Orpheus in the Underworld”)
- 1860: Daphnis et Chloé
- 1864: La belle Hélène (“The Fair Helen”)
- 1866: Barbe-bleue (“Bluebeard”)
- 1867: Robinson Crusoé
Offenbach’s incidental music includes Molière’s The Imaginary Invalid and Beaumarchais’ The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro, all 1852. His vocal music includes many works for men’s chorus from the late 1840s, plus sacred and secular works for mixed voices and several dozen solo songs. Offenbach composed four ballets, dozens of shorter dance pieces and cello works, as well as a few orchestral selections.
Offenbach conducted extensively in France (especially Paris), Vienna, London, New York, and Philadelphia, where he visited the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876, gave 40 concerts, and wrote a book of impressions after his trip.
Les contes d’Hoffmann was Offenbach’s final work. The opera achieved Offenbach’s goal of respectability as a serious opera composer, though he died of complications of gout while it was in rehearsal.
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