OFFENBACH, Jacques
b Cologne, 20 June 1819
d Paris, 4 October 1880, aged sixty-one

He was the son of a Jewish cantor, musician, author and book-binder, from whom he learned violin. He started composing at the age of six, and in 1833 was accepted by the Paris Conservatory, where he studied cello. He then played cello in the orchestra of the Opera-Comique, later making very successful tours as a fashionable salon cellist. From 1850 to 1855 he was conductor of the Comedie Française; then he began to lease his own theatres, for performances both of his own works and of others. He visited London to conduct his own operettas in 1857, 1866 and 1870, but in 1875 his trip to America was a disaster, and the bad sea-voyage nearly killed him. He died when the gout from which he had suffered attacked his heart.

1853 (34)

Le mariage aux lanternes, operetta

1858 (39)

Orpheus in the Underworld, operetta

1864 (45)

La Belle Hélène, operetta

1866 (47)

Bluebeard, operetta

La vie parisienne, opera

1867 (48)

La Grande Duchesse de Gérolstein, operetta

1868 (49)

La Périchole, operetta

1878 (59)

Madame Favart, operetta

Performed posthumously:

1881 The Tales of Hoffman, operetta