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OFFENBACH, JACQUES (1819-1880)
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See also:OFFENBACH, JACQUES (1819-1880) , See also:French composer of See also:opera bouffe, was See also:born at See also:Cologne, of See also:German Jewish parents, on the 21st of See also:June 1819. His See also:talent for See also:music was See also:developed at a very See also:early See also:age; and in 1833 he was sent to See also:Paris to study the See also:violoncello at the See also:conservatoire, where, under the care of See also:Professor Vaslin, he became a fairly See also:good performer. In 1834 he became a member of the See also:orchestra of the Opera Comique; and he turned his opportunities to good See also:account, so that eventually he was made conductor at the See also:Theatre See also:Francais. There, in 1848, he made his first success as a composer in the Chanson de Fortunio in See also:Alfred de See also:Musset's See also:play Le See also:Chandelier. From this See also:time forward his See also:life became a ceaseless struggle for the attainment of popularity. His See also:power of See also:production was apparently inexhaustible. His first See also:complete See also:work, Pepito, was produced at the Opera Comique in 1853. This was followed by a See also:crowd of dramatic pieces of a See also:light See also:character, which daily gained in favour with Parisian audiences, and eventually effected a complete revolution in the popular See also:taste of the See also:period. Encouraged by these early successes, Offenbach boldly undertook the delicate task of entirely remodelling both the See also:form and the See also:style of the light musical pieces which had so See also:long been welcomed with See also:acclamation by the frequenters of the smaller theatres in Paris. With this purpose in view he obtained a See also:lease of the Theatre See also:Comte in the Passage See also:Choiseul, reopened it in 1855 under the See also:title of the Bouffes Parisiens, and See also:night after night attracted crowded audiences by a See also:succession of brilliant, humorous trifles. Ludovic See also:Halevy, the librettist, was associated with him from the first, but still more after 1860, when Halevy obtained See also:Henri See also:Meilhac's collaboration (see HALgvv). Beginning with See also:Les Deux Aveugles and Le Violoneux, the See also:series of Offenbach's operettas was rapidly continued, until in 1867 its See also:triumph culminated in La Grande Duchesse de See also:Gerolstein, perhaps the most popular opera bouffe that ever was written, not excepting even his Orpliee aux enfers, produced in 1858. From this time forward the success of Offenbach's pieces became an See also:absolute certainty, and the new form of opera bouffe, which he had gradually endowed with as much consistency as it was capable of assuming, was accepted as the only one See also:worth cultivating. It found imitators in See also:Lecocq and other aspirants of a younger See also:generation, and Offenbach's See also:works found their way to every See also:town in See also:Europe in which a theatre existed. Tuneful, See also:gay and exhilarating, their want of refinement formed no obstacle to their popularity, and perhaps even contributed to it. In 1866 his own connexion with the Bouffes Parisiens ceased, and he wrote for various theatres. In twenty-five years Offenbach produced no less than sixty-nine complete dramatic works, some of which were in three or even in four acts. Among the latest of these were Le Docteur Ox, founded on a See also:story by Jules See also:Verne, and La Belle au lait, both produced in 1877, and Madame See also:Favart (1879). Offenbach died at Paris on the 5th of See also:October 1880. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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