 |
{aw'-fen-bahk}
The witty and satirical operettas of Jacques Offenbach, b.
Cologne, Germany, June 20, 1819, d. Oct. 5, 1880, ridiculed
the pompous aspects of life during the Second Empire in France,
a period when all art, including the theater, was subject
to censorship and musical life was dominated by grand opera.
Offenbach was the son of the violinist and cantor Isaac Juda
Eberst, who came from Offenbach am Main and was known as the
"man from Offenbach." Originally named Jacob, he
later adopted the French form Jacques and in 1844 became a
convert to Roman Catholicism. In 1833 he entered the Paris
Conservatory, where he studied cello, and in 1837 he joined
the orchestra of the Opera-Comique.
He became conductor of the Theatre Francais in 1849 and opened
his own small musical theater, Les Bouffes-Parisiens, in 1855.
Offenbach's first great success as a composer was Orpheus
in the Underworld (1858; expanded, 1874), a travesty of the
Greek myth set so nobly by Christoph Willibald Gluck, whom
it also spoofs. Among his other triumphs the most ingenious
are La Belle Helene (1864), a burlesque of the Trojan War
and of grand opera; La Vie parisienne (1866), a satire of
cosmopolitan life and industrialization; and La Grande Duchesse
de Gerolstein (1867), a sly attack on militarism and capricious
rulers.
Offenbach composed about 100 works, all marked by sparkling
tunes and such whirling dance rhythms as the galop and cancan.
The Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) brought the Second Empire
to an end, thus eliminating one of Offenbach's favorite targets.
He experienced further difficulties at this time: his works
deteriorated in quality, and Johann Strauss the younger appeared
as a competitor. An attempt to recoup losses by visiting (1877)
the United States with the Theatre de la Gaite met with little
success. Offenbach died a few months before the triumphant
premiere of his only grand opera, The Tales of Hoffmann (unfinished
at his death; orchestration and recitatives by Ernest Guiraud).
Unlike the operettas, which are so intricately connected with
the concerns of Second-Empire Paris that they are often difficult
to appreciate today, his last work still has a firm place
in the operatic repertoire.
 |
 |
|
- 
