Jacques Offenbach
The cellist Rossini called "the Mozart of the Champs-Élysées." He lit up an age with laughter, and at the end staked the rest of his life on a single serious opera.
At a glance 🔭💭
Some coordinates adapted from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0) · Pleiades (CC BY 3.0)
The people around him ⏳🌊
- FamilyIsaac Juda Eberst (Offenbach)
His father, cantor of the Cologne synagogue, who put the first instrument in his son's hands and took him to Paris.
- TeacherFromental Halévy
He taught him composition during his years in the Opéra-Comique orchestra, and his nephew Ludovic Halévy later became Offenbach's closest librettist.
- FamilyHerminie d'Alcain
The wife for whom he even converted; raising five children, she weathered the years of bankruptcy and war at his side.
- InfluenceGioachino Rossini
He called Offenbach "the Mozart of the Champs-Élysées," and Offenbach parodied his Guillaume Tell in La belle Hélène.
- FriendshipHortense Schneider
His signature prima donna, she made her debut at the Bouffes-Parisiens and created the leading roles in La belle Hélène and La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein.
- RivalryRichard Wagner
Offenbach mocked Wagner's "music of the future" on stage, and after the Franco-Prussian War Wagner ridiculed Offenbach in his comic libretto Eine Kapitulation.
I. The boy from Cologne · 1819–1833 (age 0–14)
(Birth) He was born in June 1819 in Cologne, in the Rhineland of the Kingdom of Prussia (today Germany). His given name was Jakob Offenbach, and he was the seventh of ten children. His father, Isaac Juda Eberst, came from Offenbach am Main, a small town near Frankfurt. In his days as a wandering musician he was known as "the man from Offenbach," and he eventually took the nickname as his surname. He made his living binding books and giving music lessons. Later he became cantor (the precentor who leads the prayers in song during services) at the Cologne synagogue, and he even published a book of prayer melodies. Little record remains of his mother, Marianne. (Cello) His father taught the boy the violin at six. Around the age of nine the child moved to the cello, and the instrument soon became his voice for life. He studied with cellists in Cologne and, from an early age, wrote and played little pieces of his own. The cantor's melodies he heard every day at the synagogue and the sound of his father's lessons filling the house were his first music classroom. (Trio) His brother Julius took the violin and his sister Isabella the piano. The three formed a trio and played dance music in Cologne's ballrooms and taverns, adding their earnings to the household income. Keeping time to the steps of dancers would later carry over into the springing waltzes and galops that drive his stage works. In 1833 his father decided that Cologne was too small to nurture the talents of his two sons. He set out for Paris with fourteen-year-old Jakob and his brother Julius. It was the city with more theaters and salons for a musician to work in than any other in Europe.
II. The Paris cellist · 1833–1849 (age 14–30)
(Admission) Cherubini, director of the Paris Conservatoire, at first refused him admission, citing the rule against accepting foreigners. But after hearing the boy play in person, he relented. In November 1833 he joined the cello class, yet he soon tired of the set curriculum and left the school after little more than a year. He also changed his name to the French Jacques. The brothers earned their keep singing in a synagogue choir. (Orchestra) In 1835 he won a place as cellist in the orchestra of the Opéra-Comique. The pay was meager, and the story goes that he was fined for playing pranks during performances. Around this time he studied composition with Fromental Halévy, composer of La Juive. He also grew close to the German-born composer Friedrich von Flotow, and the two wrote and performed salon duets together. (Soloist) In the late 1830s he left the orchestra and set out as a salon soloist. His playing, which paired dazzling technique with a clownish stage manner, made his name in Parisian society. On an 1844 tour of London he shared the stage with Mendelssohn and the thirteen-year-old Joseph Joachim, and he also played before Queen Victoria. His cello concerto Concerto militaire, written around 1847, captures the virtuoso confidence of those years. (Marriage) Meanwhile he fell in love with Herminie d'Alcain, the daughter of a Spanish émigré. Her stepfather was John Mitchell, the English impresario who had arranged the London tour. Her family made a steady income and conversion to Catholicism the conditions of the marriage. He converted and married her in August 1844. When the Revolution of 1848 froze the Paris concert market, he took his family to Cologne for safety and returned the following year.
A major work that Offenbach, the virtuoso cellist who swept the salons, wrote for his own hands. It shows what kind of performer he was before he became a composer of operettas.
- The drumbeats and bugle-call rhythms of the orchestral introduction explain the nickname "militaire." Listen for the short, bouncing dotted rhythms (a long note paired with a short one).
- In the passages where the cello soars into its highest register, the player rests the thumb on the string to stop the notes (thumb position). It was a technique Offenbach himself had mastered, and the piece is still counted among the most demanding for cellists.
- In the slow movement the cello sings long lines like a human voice. Already you can glimpse the melodist who would later flower on the stage.
- The score survived scattered in several places until it was restored by the Offenbach scholar Jean-Christophe Keck and became widely known through recordings in the 2000s. Length and structure can differ from one recording to another, so check the edition as you compare.
III. A little theater · 1850–1858 (age 31–39)
(Conducting) In 1850 he became music director of the Théâtre-Français (the Comédie-Française), responsible for the entr'acte music for its plays. His "Chanson de Fortunio," written for Musset's play Le Chandelier, was greatly loved. Yet the Opéra-Comique itself would not take his stage works. Worn out with waiting, he decided to open a theater of his own. (Opening) It was the summer of 1855, with Paris crowded for the Exposition Universelle. He rented a small wooden theater on the Champs-Élysées and on July 5 opened the doors of the Bouffes-Parisiens. His first hit, Les Deux Aveugles, was a one-act piece about two beggars posing as blind men who quarrel over a begging spot on a bridge. Visitors to the exposition flocked in, and in winter he moved to a theater in the Passage Choiseul and kept the performances going. (Restrictions) His official license limited him to one-act pieces with no more than three or four singing actors. He turned this framework into a joke. In Croquefer (1857) a knight whose tongue has been cut out speaks only in barks and placards. In 1856 he held a competition for new composers, and the eighteen-year-old Bizet and Charles Lecocq shared first prize. Bizet's Le Docteur Miracle premiered at the theater the following year. Because he spared no expense on lavish staging and performers' fees, the theater's books were always in the red. (Myth) When the restrictions were lifted in 1858, he staged his first full-scale work, Orphée aux enfers. The libretto was by Hector Crémieux and Ludovic Halévy, nephew of his teacher Halévy. It was a Greek myth in which the gods are bored and husband and wife are sick of each other. In the course of the play Orphée quotes Gluck's aria "J'ai perdu mon Eurydice." When the critic Jules Janin denounced it as blasphemy, audiences only flocked to it all the more.
His first full-scale work, staged as soon as the licensing restrictions were lifted. The wit of a little theater grew into a satire that turns an entire myth upside down.
- The "Infernal galop" from the underworld banquet in Act 2 (Act 4 in the revised version) is the very music commonly called the cancan. Cymbals and bass drum crash over a breathless, rapid duple meter.
- The overture so often heard in concerts today is not by Offenbach but was assembled from melodies in the work by Carl Binder for the 1860 Vienna production. The first performance had only a short prelude.
- There is a passage where Orphée borrows the tune of Gluck's aria "J'ai perdu mon Eurydice." In this household, tragedy's great lament becomes a weapon in a listless marital spat.
- In the duet in which Jupiter turns himself into a fly to seduce Eurydice, the voices imitate the "zzz" of buzzing wings.
- The character of Public Opinion mimics the chorus of ancient tragedy and speaks for a society concerned only with appearances. The march-like chorus in the scene where the gods rise in revolt sounds like a revolutionary anthem.
IV. The Mozart of the Champs-Élysées · 1859–1869 (age 40–50)
(Fame) Orphée aux enfers ran for hundreds of performances, and he became at a stroke the face of Second Empire Paris. Rossini called him "the Mozart of the Champs-Élysées." In 1860 he became a French citizen, and the following year he received the Légion d'honneur. That same year he included a scene called "Le musicien de l'avenir" in his satirical revue Le Carnaval des revues. It poked fun at the "music of the future" of Wagner, who happened to be in Paris preparing a production of Tannhäuser. (Heyday) In 1862 he stepped down from running the theater and broadened his stage to other houses. In 1864 La belle Hélène made Hortense Schneider the greatest star of the day. That same year his serious opera Die Rheinnixen, staged at the Vienna Court Opera, did not last long. But one of its melodies would later come back to life as the Barcarolle in Les Contes d'Hoffmann. Then came La Vie parisienne (1866), La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein (1867) and La Périchole (1868). During the 1867 Exposition Universelle, monarchs from across Europe came to see La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein. It was a work that mocked a tiny country obsessed with playing at war. (Family) The couple had four daughters and a son, Auguste. Their villa at Étretat on the Normandy coast, the "Villa Orphée," bustled every summer with guests and children. He earned a great deal and spent even more, and debt followed him like a shadow. From the 1860s on he carried on a long love affair with the singer Zulma Bouffar. (Gout) Around the same time his gout began. The image of him, rail-thin and wrapped in a fur coat even in midsummer, recurs often in the recollections of his contemporaries. Even in pain he came to rehearsals and personally polished the actors' timing.
Written for Hortense Schneider, the work portrays the heroes of the Trojan War as vain aristocrats of the Second Empire and opened his golden age.
- Hélène's "Amours divins" in Act 1 begins like a solemn prayer to the goddess of love. Yet a quiet sensuality seeps through the curves of the melody. This tightrope walk between solemnity and mischief is the flavor of the work.
- In the scene where the kings enter one after another, a running wordplay repeats the final syllables of the lyrics. Ménélas's "Je suis l'époux de la reine, poux de la reine" is one example; heard in the original French, the humor comes alive.
- The "patriotic trio" in Act 3 is a parody that twists the majestic trio from Rossini's Guillaume Tell. Hear the original first and the laughter doubles.
- In the couplets (a song that repeats the same tune with new words) in which Pâris tells of the judgment where he handed over the apple, the sly mischief piles up with each verse.
At the 1867 Exposition Universelle, the crowned heads of Europe filled the house for this work. Before their very eyes, it made a mockery of war games and the whims of power.
- The Grand Duchess's "Ah! que j'aime les militaires" rides on a jaunty march rhythm. Over it is painted the whim of a ruler picking out soldiers as if reviewing the troops.
- General Boum's song features "Pif, paf, pouf," an imitation of gunfire. With onomatopoeia (words that imitate sounds) it paints a portrait of a soldier full of bluster.
- In "Dites-lui" the Grand Duchess has a courtier convey her feelings to a soldier. The song is a rare tender, lyrical moment in the work. It was counted among Schneider's signature numbers.
- "Voici le sabre de mon père" extols a sword handed down through the generations. Yet in the course of the play this sword passes giddily between lovers and generals. Listen for the mismatch between the form of a solemn hymn and the absurdity of the situation.
V. War and bankruptcy · 1870–1877 (age 51–58)
(War) When the Franco-Prussian War broke out in 1870, he found himself suspected by both sides. The French papers treated the Cologne-born composer as an enemy alien, while the Germans saw him as a man who had abandoned his homeland. He withdrew by way of Étretat and stayed abroad for a time. Wagner, writing A Capitulation, a comic libretto ridiculing the people of Paris, made Offenbach a laughingstock as well. When the Empire fell, word went round that his laughter, which had mocked that very Empire, had gone out of fashion with it. (The Gaîté) In 1873 he took over the management of the Théâtre de la Gaîté, a large playhouse. The following year he remounted Orpheus in the Underworld as a lavish four-act spectacle, to great success. But he poured a fortune into Sardou's play La Haine, which failed, and in 1875 he finally went bankrupt. He paid down his debts by signing over his assets and part of his future earnings to his creditors. That same year the theater premiered Le voyage dans la lune, an enormous spectacle inspired by Jules Verne's novel. Even as his fortunes sank, the stage alone remained extravagant. (America) In 1876 he set out on a concert tour timed to the Centennial Exposition marking a hundred years of American independence. Conducting his own works in New York and Philadelphia, he raised money to pay off his debts. On his return he published a travel book, Notes of a Traveling Musician (1877). It captures, with humor, the eye of a fifty-seven-year-old European astonished by advertising, hotels and vast concert halls. America gave him money and, with it, the assurance that there were still audiences glad to see him.
VI. The Tales of Hoffmann · 1878–1880 (age 59–61)
(Comeback) In 1879 the great success of the operetta La fille du tambour-major put him back at the center of the Paris stage. Yet his heart was elsewhere. He wanted to write one serious opera, so that he would not be remembered only as a composer of laughter. (The final work) His subject was The Tales of Hoffmann, a play written in 1851 by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré. With the German Romantic writer E. T. A. Hoffmann as its hero, it weaves together the stories of three women he had loved: Olympia, a mechanical doll; Antonia, who suffers from an illness that will kill her if she sings; and Giulietta, a courtesan of Venice. Each time he loves one of them, a diabolical rival appears and destroys that love. In May 1879 he held a private run-through of excerpts at his home. Carvalho of the Opéra-Comique and Jauner of Vienna's Ringtheater came and promised to stage it. Even as gout and heart trouble wore his body down, he never let go of the score. (Death) On October 5, 1880, with rehearsals in full swing, he died at his home in Paris. He was sixty-one. His funeral was held at the Église de la Madeleine, and he was buried in the Montmartre Cemetery. The unfinished score was prepared by Ernest Guiraud, the very composer who had added recitatives (passages sung as if spoken) to Bizet's Carmen. At the Opéra-Comique premiere on February 10, 1881, the Giulietta act was cut entirely. He never lived to see his last stage work. His wife, Herminie, followed her husband in 1887, and their son Auguste also died young, a few years after his father.
This is the serious opera into which the composer of laughter poured the last of his strength. He lived to see neither its completion nor its premiere.
- In the Venice act, the 'boat song' (barcarolle) flows as two female voices move side by side in harmony over a slow six-beat rhythm that rocks like a boat. The melody was salvaged from Die Rheinnixen, which failed in Vienna in 1864.
- 'Les oiseaux dans la charmille', the song of the mechanical doll Olympia, is a coloratura aria that rolls ornaments through the very highest notes. By long-standing stage custom, her clockwork runs down midway through the song, she slows, and someone winds her up again.
- In the prologue, Hoffmann sings a comic song mocking the dwarf Kleinzach, only to drift, almost without noticing, into a reverie recalling the face of a woman he once loved. Don't miss the moment when the tempo and mood shift.
- In the Antonia act, before a daughter stricken with an illness that will kill her if she sings, the voice of her dead mother rings out from a portrait, urging her to sing. The trio in which the three voices intertwine is the opera's tragic climax.
- The order of the acts and the numbers performed differ from production to production. Many pieces, like the famous 'Scintille, diamant', were added after Offenbach's death. Checking which edition is being used and comparing performances is one of the great pleasures among devotees.
Lesser-known stories
Some of the best-loved numbers in today's performances of The Tales of Hoffmann were not written by Offenbach for this opera. The Venice act's 'Scintille, diamant' and its septet were added for the 1904 Monte Carlo production. 'Scintille, diamant' is a reworking of a melody from Le voyage dans la lune. Because the opera was left unfinished, it was altered again and again from production to production, starting with the premiere. And because the source materials were believed to have been lost in the 1887 Opéra-Comique fire, the added numbers long passed as part of the original. In the late 20th century, scattered autograph scores came to light one after another, and on that basis new editions appeared by Fritz Oeser and by Michael Kaye and Jean-Christophe Keck. Only then did anyone begin to sort out what was truly Offenbach's. A superstition that the opera is ill-omened has dogged it. In December 1881, just before the second performance of The Tales of Hoffmann at Vienna's Ringtheater, fire broke out, and hundreds lost their lives. The disaster prompted changes to fire-safety regulations in theaters across Europe. In the opera world, however, it lingered for years as the label of a 'cursed work'. Though overshadowed by his fame on the stage, he wrote music for the cello all his life. His cello duets for students are still used in practice rooms today. The short piece 'Les larmes de Jacqueline' was named by the German cellist Werner Thomas-Mifune, who discovered the unpublished score. He named it in memory of the cellist Jacqueline du Pré, who died young. Few people know that the title is not Offenbach's own.
Notes on terms 📚🔎
Operetta
(Etymology) The Italian word opera with the suffix -etta, meaning 'little', attached; that is, 'little opera'. (In music) A light music drama mixing song, dialogue and dance. The plots are usually comic and full of satire. It differs from serious opera in that, between the songs, the actors simply speak their lines to one another. It is much like a comedy skit that classmates put together for a school festival, with a few songs thrown in. Offenbach's Paris stage spread the genre throughout Europe.
Opéra bouffe
(Etymology) The 'bouffe' in the French opéra bouffe comes from the Italian buffo, meaning 'comic'. Put simply, a 'comic opera'. (In music) The genre name Offenbach gave to works such as Orpheus in the Underworld and La belle Hélène. It refers to farces that bring in figures from myth or history to poke fun at the society of the day. Think of a parody cartoon in which a hero from a book of great lives grumbles in modern slang. It creates laughter by deliberately twisting a serious story into something absurd.
Barcarolle (boat song)
(Etymology) From the Italian barcarola, which derives from barca, meaning 'boat', and came to mean a song sung by a boatman. (In music) A piece modeled on the songs of Venetian gondoliers. A slow rhythm that divides each bar into six (6/8 time) gives the feeling of a boat rocking on the waves. Picture the steady sway of a swing as it goes forward and back. The barcarolle from The Tales of Hoffmann is the most famous example.
Galop
(Etymology) The French galop refers to a horse's fastest gait, in which it gathers all four legs beneath it as it runs. (In music) A very fast dance in duple time that was all the rage at 19th-century balls. Dancers bounded across the hall as if they were horses at full gallop. Like jumping rope wildly to music in gym class, it charges ahead without resting for a single beat. The 'Infernal Galop' from Orpheus in the Underworld later became even more famous as the music for the cancan. (Elsewhere) In horseback riding it refers to the horse's fastest gait itself; in English it is called the gallop.
Couplet
(Etymology) The French couplet comes from couple, meaning 'pair, couple', and originally referred to a pair of matched lines of verse. (In music) A song in which the same tune is repeated several times while only the words change. In operetta, a new joke is often added with each verse, built up so that the laughter bursts out in the final verse. It resembles the prank of singing "Happy Birthday" to the same tune while friends swap in new words for the second and third verses. (Elsewhere) In English poetry, a couplet is a pair of rhyming lines.
Parody
(Etymology) From the Greek parōidia. Combining 'beside, askew' (para) and 'song' (ōidē), it originally meant a song sung alongside another, twisting it. (In music) A technique that borrows the melody or form of a well-known piece and attaches it to an absurd situation to get a laugh. The patriotic trio in La belle Hélène twists the majestic trio from Rossini's Guillaume Tell. Orpheus in the Underworld drags a Gluck aria into a marital quarrel. It works on the same principle as friends acting out a famous movie scene and changing only the lines. The better you know the original, the funnier it is. (Elsewhere) Imitating a famous work for laughs in commercials or variety shows is also called parody.
Coloratura
(Etymology) Italian for 'that which is colored'. The name comes from the idea of decorating a melody as if painting it in brilliant colors. (In music) A vocal style that embellishes a song with a profusion of rapid runs, trills and leaping notes in a very high register. A soprano who excels at this kind of singing is called a coloratura soprano. It is like taking a notebook where everyone draws the same lines and dressing it up with highlighters and glitter stickers. Olympia's song in The Tales of Hoffmann uses this style to convey the intricate precision of a mechanical doll rather than a human being.