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Jacques Offenbach

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File:JacquesOffenbach.jpg
Jacques Offenbach

Jacques Offenbach (20 June 1819, in Cologne – 5 October 1880, in Paris) was a French composer and cellist of the Romantic era and one of the originators of the operetta form. Of German-Jewish descent, he was one of the most influential composers of popular music in Europe in the 19th century, and many of his works remain in the repertory.

Offenbach's numerous operettas, such as Orpheus in the Underworld, and La belle Hélène, were extremely popular in both France and the English-speaking world in the 1850s and 1860s. They combined political and cultural satire with witty grand opera parodies. His popularity waned in the 1870s after the fall of the Second Empire, and he fled France, but during the last years of his life, his popularity rebounded. While his name remains most closely associated with the French operetta and the Second Empire, it is his one fully operatic masterpiece, Les contes d'Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann), composed at the end of his career, that has become the most familiar of Offenbach's works in major opera houses.

Biography

File:Offenbach plays the cello.jpg
The young Offenbach playing the cello. Circa 1840

Offenbach's father, born Isaac Eberst in Offenbach am Main around 1780, changed his name to Offenbach when he settled down in Deutz in 1802. He was a man of many talents who worked as a bookbinder, translator, publisher, music teacher and composer and became a cantor some 30 years later. In 1816 the family moved to Cologne, where his son Jacob (later changed to Jacques) was born in 1819.

Early career

In 1833 his father took Jacob to Paris and managed to get him admitted as a cello student to the Paris Conservatoire. Financial difficulties forced Jacques, as he was known by then, to break off his studies at the end of 1834. After a few odd jobs he eventually found a position as a cellist in the orchestra of the Opéra Comique. He soon made a name for himself as a cello virtuoso, appearing with famous pianists like the young Anton Rubinstein, Liszt, Mendelssohn, and, very often, with Flotow with whom he performed jointly composed pieces. In 1844, he converted to Catholicism and married Herminie d'Alcain. He moved to Germany with his wife and daughter in 1848 (the couple eventually had four daughters) to escape revolutionary violence in France, but returned after a brief stay.

In 1850, he became conductor of the Théâtre Français, but the musical theatre establishment in Paris did not immediately accept his sometimes pointed songs and music. Therefore, in 1855, he rented for the Expo season a little theatre on the Champs-Élysées and named it the Bouffes Parisiens. In the following winter he moved the Bouffes to a larger and, above all, heatable theatre on rue Monsigny/Passage Choiseul. There he began a successful career devoted largely to composing operettas. In the early years, Offenbach's permit limited his productions to one-act works with only a few speaking or singing characters. Les deux aveugles, Ba-ta-clan (both premiering in 1855), and La bonne d'enfant were three of his popular works from this period. Only in 1858, after these restrictions had been lifted, it became possible for him to produce his first full-length work, Orpheus in the Underworld.

Offenbach wrote almost 100 operettas, some of which were wildly popular in his time, and his most popular works are still performed regularly today. The best of these works combined hilarious political and cultural satire with witty grand opera parodies. His best-known operettas in the English-speaking world are Orpheus in the Underworld (1858), La belle Hélène (1864), La vie parisienne (1866), The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein (1867), and La Périchole (1868). Les Brigands (1869) was very popular in the English-speaking world initially but was later forgotten.

Offenbach worked with the librettists Meilhac and Halévy more often than any other librettist or team and produced some of his most successful works with them. He said of his relationship with the team: Je suis sans doute le Père, chacun des deux autres est à la fois mon Fils et Plein d'Esprit (literally "No doubt I am the Father; each of the two others is at once my Son and Full of Verve"— esprit meaning both [Holy] Spirit and wit and Plein d'Esprit rhyming with Saint Esprit).

Later years

The grave of Jacques Offenbach at the Cimetière de Montmartre, Paris

Offenbach was much attached to his adopted country, and many of his works are very patriotic in nature. But when war broke out between France and Germany in 1870, ending the Second Empire, he was attacked in the French press as an immigrant agent of Bismarck and was forced to flee. Reviled in the German press as a traitor to his native Germany, and he brought his family to safety in Spain and then toured in Italy and Austria. When he returned to Paris in June 1871 after the war, his operettas were out of favor with the public. The political right wing felt that by "turning royalty into a farce and the army into a joke" Offenbach's parodies had undermined Napoleon III's France and were therefore the cause, or at least one of the causes, of the defeat. Ironically, the left blamed Offenbach for his perceived loyalty to the deposed emperor, and he had trouble with the police. 1875 marked a low point, and Offenbach was forced into bankruptcy. In 1876, though, a very successful tour of the United States at the occasion of the U.S. Centennial Exhibition allowed him to recover part of his losses. While there, he conducted two of his operettas, La vie parisienne and La jolie parfumeuse, and also gave as many as 40 concerts in New York and Philadelphia.

Offenbach enjoyed renewed popularity with Madame Favart (1878), which built a fantasy plot around the real-life French actress Marie Justine Favart, and La fille du tambour-major, a musically inventive piece. Most experts are of the opinion that his last work, The Tales of Hoffmann, was his only grand opera. It is more serious and more ambitious in its musical scope than his other works, perhaps reflecting the eternal wish of the humourist to be taken seriously. The opera was still unfinished at his death in 1880, but was completed by his friend Ernest Guiraud and premiered in 1881.

In 1938, Manuel Rosenthal (1904-2003) assembled the popular ballet Gaîté Parisienne from his own orchestral arrangements of melodies from Offenbach's operettas and the "barcarolle" from The Tales of Hoffman.

Offenbach is buried in the Cimetière de Montmartre, Paris, France.

List of stage works

A list of Offenbach's 100 known stage works follows[1]. (It should be noted that multiple versions of his works, sometimes under different titles, and inconsistencies in sources concerning works composed, partly composed, and staged by Offenbach, have led to differences in counting the exact number of his works.)

Elegy to Offenbach in the illustrated magazine Punch.

1847-1855

  • L'alcôve (1847) - Opéra-comique in one act, libretto by Philippe August Pittaud de Forges, A de Leuven and E G Roche
  • Blanche (unperformed) - Opéra-comique in one act, libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges
  • La Duchesse d'Albe (unperformed) - Opéra-comique in three acts, libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges
  • Le trésor à Mathurin (1853) - Tableau villageois in one act, libretto by Léon Battu (revised as Le mariage aux lanternes - Opérette in one act, libretto by Michel Carré and Léon Battu, first performed in 1857)
  • Pépito (1853) - Opéra-comique in one act, libretto by Léon Battu and Jules Moinaux
  • Luc et Lucette (1854) - Opéra-comique in one act, libretto by Philippe August Pittaud de Forges and E G Roche
  • Le décaméron, ou La grotte d'azur (1855) - Légende napolitaine in one act, libretto by Joseph Méry
  • Entrez, messieurs, mesdames (1855) - Piéce d'occasion in one act, libretto by Joseph Méry and J Servières (Ludovic Halévy)
  • Une nuit blanche (1855) - Opéra-comique in one act, libretto by E Plouvier
  • Les deux aveugles (1855) - Bouffonnerie musicale in one act, libretto by Jules Moinaux
  • Le rêve d'une nuit d'été (1855) - Saynète in one act, libretto by Etienne Tréfeu
  • Oyayaye, ou La reine des îles (1855) - Anthropophagie musicale in one act, libretto by Jules Moineaux
  • Le violoneux (1855) - Légende bretonne in one act, libretto by Eugène Mestépès and Emile Chevalet
  • Madame Papillon (1855) - Opérette in one act, libretto by J Servières (Ludovic Halévy)
  • Paimpol et Périnette (1855) - Saynète in one act, libretto by de Lussan (Philippe August Pittaud de Forges)
  • Ba-ta-clan (1855) - Chinoiserie musicale in one act, libretto by Ludovic Halévy
  • Trafalgar – Sur un volcan (1855) - Comédie à ariettes in one act, libretto by Joseph Méry

1856-1860

  • Un postillon en gage (1856) - Opérette in one act, libretto by E Plouvier and J Adenis
  • Tromb-al-ca-zar, ou Les criminels dramatiques (1856) - Bouffonerie musicale in one act, libretto by C D Dupeuty and E Bourget
  • La rose de Saint-Flour (1856) - Opérette in one act, libretto by M Carré
  • Les dragées du baptême (1856) - Pièce d'occasion in one act, libretto by C D Dupeuty and E Bourget
  • Le 66 (1856) - Opérette in one act, libretto by Philippe August Pittaud de Forges and M. Laurencin
  • Le financier et le savetier (1856) - Opérette-bouffe in one act, libretto by Hector-Jonathan Crémieux and E About
  • La bonne d'enfant (1856) - Opérette-bouffe in one act, libretto by Eugène Bercioux
  • Les trois baisers du diable (1857) - Opérette fantastique in one act, libretto by E Mestépès
  • Croquefer, ou Le dernier des paladins (1857) - Opéra-bouffe in one act, libretto by Louis-Adolphe Jaime and Etienne Tréfeu
  • Dragonette (1857) - Opéra-bouffe in one act, libretto by E Mestépès and Louis-Adolphe Jaime
Playbill for Offenbach's Orphée aux enfers. 1858
Lithograph of the ballerina Emma Livry as Farfalla in Offenbach's ballet Le Papillon. 1861
  • Vent du soir, ou L’horrible festin (1857) - Opérette-bouffe in one act, libretto by Philippe Gille
  • Une demoiselle en loterie (1857) - Opérette in one act, libretto by Louis-Adolphe Jaime and Hector-Jonathan Crémieux
  • Les deux pêcheurs, ou Le lever du soleil (1857) - Opérette-bouffe in one act, libretto by C D Dupeuty and E Bourget
  • Mesdames de la Halle (1858) - Opérette-bouffe in one act, libretto by Armand Lapointe
  • La chatte metamorphosée en femme (1858) - Opérette in one act, libretto by Eugène Scribe and Baron Anne-Honoré-Joseph Duveyrier de Mélésville (1787—1865).
  • Orphée aux enfers (Orpheus in the Underworld) (1858) - Opéra-bouffon in two acts, libretto by Hector-Jonathan Crémieux and Ludovic Halévy
  • Le mari à la porte (1859) - Opérette in one act, libretto by A. Ch. Delacour (A C Lartigue) and Léon Morand
  • Les vivandières de la grande-armée (1859) - Opérette-bouffe in one act, libretto by Louis-Adolphe Jaime and Philippe August Pittaud de Forges
  • Geneviève de Brabant (1859) - Opéra-bouffon in two acts, libretto by Louis-Adolphe Jaime and Etienne Tréfeu (revised by Etienne Tréfeu and Hector Crémieux)
  • Le carnaval des revues (1860) - Revue in one act, libretto by E Grangé, Philippe Gille and Ludovic Halévy
  • Daphnis et Chloé (1860) - Opérette in one act, libretto by N. Clairville (N F Nicolaie) and Jules Cordier (E T de Vaulabelle)
  • Barkouf (1860) - Opéra-bouffe in three acts, libretto by Eugène Scribe and H Boissseaux after Abbé Blanchet (revised as Boule de neige, 1871, libretto by Charles-Louis-Etienne Nuitter and Etienne Tréfeu)
  • Le papillon (1860) - Ballet-fantastique in two acts, libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges, choreography by Marie Taglioni.

1861-1865

  • La chanson de Fortunio (1861) - Opéra-comique in one act, libretto by Hector-Jonathan Crémieux and Ludovic Halévy
  • Le pont des soupirs (1861) - Opéra-bouffon in two acts, libretto by Hector-Jonathan Crémieux and Ludovic Halévy
  • M. Choufleuri restera chez lui le . . . (1861) - Opéra-bouffe in one act, libretto by M de Saint Rémy, E L’Epine, Hector-Jonathan Crémieux and Ludovic Halévy
  • Apothicaire et perruquier (1861) - Opérette-bouffe in one act, libretto by E Frébault
  • Le roman comique (1861) - Opéra-bouffon in three acts, libretto by Hector-Jonathan Crémieux and Ludovic Halévy
  • M et Mme Denis (1862) - Opéra-comique in one act, libretto by Laurencin (Chapelle) and Michel Delaporte
  • Le voyage de MM. Dunanan père et fils (1862) - Opéra-bouffon in three acts, libretto by P Siraudin and Jules Moinaux
  • Les bavards (1862) - Opéra-bouffe in two acts, libretto by Charles-Louis-Etienne Nuitter after Cervantes
  • Jacqueline (1862) - Opérette in one act, libretto by P d'Arcy (Hector-Jonathan Crémieux and Ludovic Halévy)
  • La baguette (Fédia) (unperformed) - Opéra-comique in two acts, libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy
  • Il signor Fagotto (1863) - Opérette in one act, libretto by Charles-Louis-Etienne Nuitter and Etienne Tréfeu
  • Lischen et Fritzchen (1863) - Conversation alsacienne in one act, libretto by P Dubois (P Boisselot)
  • Les fées du Rhin (1863) - Romantic opera in four acts, libretto by Charles-Louis-Etienne Nuitter. This opera contained a "ghost-song", which Ernest Guiraud appropriated and reworked as the Barcarolle in Les contes d'Hoffman in his completion of the opera after Offenbach's death.
  • L'amour chanteur (1864) - Opérette in one act, libretto by Charles-Louis-Etienne Nuitter and L'Epine
  • Les géorgiennes (1864) - Opéra-bouffe in three acts, libretto by Jules Moinaux
  • Le fifre enchanté, ou Le soldat magicien (1864) - Opéra-comique in one act, libretto by Charles-Louis-Etienne Nuitter and Etienne Tréfeu
  • Jeanne qui pleure et Jean qui rit (1864) - Opérette in one act, libretto by Charles-Louis-Etienne Nuitter and Etienne Tréfeu
  • La belle Hélène (1864) - Opéra-bouffe in three acts, libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy
  • Coscoletto, ou Le lazzarone (1865) - Opéra-comique in two acts, libretto by Charles-Louis-Etienne Nuitter and Etienne Tréfeu
  • Les refrains des bouffes (1865) - Fantasie musicale in one act, libretto lost
  • Les bergers (1865) - Opéra-comique in three acts, libretto by Hector-Jonathan Crémieux and Philippe Gille

1866-1870

Poster advertising Offenbach's La Vie Parisienne. 1866
File:Visuel perichole.jpg
Poster advertising Offenbach's La Périchole. 1868
  • Barbe-bleue (1866) - Opéra-bouffe in three acts, libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy
  • La vie parisienne (1866) - Opéra-bouffe in five or four acts, libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy
  • La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein (1867) - Opéra-bouffe in three acts, libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halevy
  • La permission de dix heures (1867) - Opéra-comique in one act, libretto by Mélesville and Pierre Carmouche
  • Robinson Crusoé (1867) - Opéra-comique in three acts, libretto by Eugène Cormon and Hector-Jonathan Crémieux
  • La leçon de chant électromagnétique (1867) - Bouffonnerie-musicale in one act, libretto by Ernest Bourget
  • Le château à Toto (1868) - Opéra-bouffe in three acts, libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy
  • L'île de Tulipatan (1868) - Opéra-bouffe in one act, libretto by Henri Charles Chivot and Alfred Duru
  • La Périchole (1868) - Opéra-bouffe in three acts, libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy
  • Vert-Vert (1869) - Opéra-comique in three acts, libretto by Henri Meilhac and Charles-Louis-Etienne Nuitter
  • La diva (1869) - Opéra-bouffe in three acts, libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy
  • La princesse de Trébizonde (1869) - Opéra-bouffe in three acts, libretto by Charles-Louis-Etienne Nuitter and Etienne Tréfeu
  • Les brigands (1869) - Opéra-bouffe in three acts, libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy
  • La romance de la rose (1869) - Opérette in one act, libretto by Etienne Tréfeu, J Prével and Charles-Louis-Etienne Nuitter

1871-1875

  • Le roi Carotte (1872) - Opéra-bouffe-féerie in four acts, libretto by Victorien Sardou after E. T. A. Hoffmann
  • Fantasio (1872) - Opéra-comique in three acts, libretto by Paul de Musset after A de Musset
  • Le corsaire noir - Opéra-comique in three acts, libretto by Charles-Louis-Etienne Nuitter, Etienne Tréfeu, and Offenbach (performed as Der schwarze Corsar, 1872)
  • Fleurette - Opéra-comique in one act, libretto by Philippe August Pittaud de Forges and M Laurencin (performed as Fleurette, oder Trompeter und Näherin, 1872)
  • Les braconniers (1873) - Opéra-bouffe in three acts, libretto by Henri Charles Chivot and Alfred Duru
  • Pomme d'api (1873) - Opérette in one act, libretto by Ludovic Halévy and W Busnach
  • La jolie parfumeuse (1873) - Opéra-comique in three acts, libretto by Hector-Jonathan Crémieux and Ernest Blum
  • Bagatelle (1874) - Opéra-comique in one act, libretto by Hector-Jonathan Crémieux and Ernest Blum
  • Madame l'archiduc (1874) - Opéra-bouffe in three acts, libretto by A Millaud, Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy
  • Whittington (1874) - Opéra-bouffe-féerie in three acts, libretto by Charles-Louis-Etienne Nuitter and Etienne Tréfeu (also performed as Le chat du diable, 1893)
  • Les hannetons (1875) - Revue in three acts, libretto by Grangé and A Millaud
  • La boulangère a des écus (1875) - Opéra-bouffe in three acts, libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy
  • Le voyage dans la lune (1875) - Opéra-féerie in four acts, libretto by Eugène Leterrier, Albert Vanloo and A Mortier
  • La créole (1875) - Opéra-comique in three acts, libretto by A Millaud and Henri Meilhac.
  • Tarte à la crême (1875) - Valse in one act, libretto by A Millaud
  • Pierrette et Jacquot (1876) - Opérette in one act, libretto by J Noriac and Philippe Gille

1876-1881

  • La boîte au lait (1876) - Opéra-bouffe in four acts, libretto by Grangé and J Noriac
  • Le docteur Ox (1877) - Opéra-bouffe in three acts, libretto by A Mortier and Philippe Gille, after Jules Verne
  • La foire Saint-Laurent (1877) - Opéra-bouffe in three acts, libretto by Hector-Jonathan Crémieux, and A de Saint-Albin
  • Maître Péronilla (1878) - Opéra-bouffe in three acts, libretto by Charles-Louis-Etienne Nuitter, P Ferrier and Offenbach
  • Madame Favart (1878) - Opéra-comique in three acts, libretto by Alfred Duru and Henri Charles Chivot.
  • La marocaine (1879) - Opéra-bouffe in three acts, libretto by Ferrier and Ludovic Halévy
  • La fille du tambour-major (1879) - Opéra-comique, libretto by Alfred Duru and Henri Charles Chivot
  • Belle Lurette (1880) - Opéra-comique in three acts, libretto by Ernest Blum, E Blau and R Toché
  • Les contes d'Hoffmann (1880 unfinished) - Opéra in three acts, libretto by Jules Barbier
  • Mam'zelle Moucheron (1881) - Opérette-bouffe in one act, libretto by Eugène Leterrier and Albert Vanloo

Derivative works

  • Gaîté Parisienne (1938) - a ballet score pastiche of Offenbach melodies arranged and orchestrated by Manuel Rosenthal.

Critical reception of Offenbach's work

Friedrich Nietzsche said about Offenbach: "If by artistic genius we understand the most consummate freedom within the law, divine ease and facility in overcoming the greatest difficulties, then Offenbach has even more right to the title 'genius' than Wagner has. Wagner is heavy and clumsy, nothing is more foreign to him than the moments of wanton perfection which this clown Offenbach achieves as many as five times, six times, in nearly every one of his buffooneries."[2]

Émile Zola commented on Offenbach and his work in a novel (Nana)[3] and an essay (La féerie et l'opérette IV/V)[4]. While granting that Offenbach's main operettas are full of grace, charm and wit, Zola blames Offenbach for what others have made out of the genre, and what they are yet to make out of it. The operetta as a genre is in Zola's eyes a "public enemy", a "monstrous beast" that should have been "strangled" at birth; an echo of the Leipziger Allgemeine Zeitung, which had written in 1870 that Offenbach's operetta was precisely what Germany was fighting against. Zola makes two further points. One is that, as chapter I of Nana suggests, everything in and around the operetta performed in it (a take-off of La belle Hélène) is authentic. The theatre (bordel, as the director calls it), the actors, the audience and the operetta itself are authentically Second Empire. The Viennese operetta and its Berlin cousin, on the other hand, would become famous for their total inauthenticity.[clarification needed] A second point concerns the nature of Offenbach's satire. Following Siegfried Kracauer's lead, most experts see Offenbach's works as sort of a social protest, an attack against the establishment.[5] Zola asserts in his analysis that nothing could be farther from the truth. In his view, even at its most scathing, the criticism offered in Offenbach's works was an homage to a "system" that not only tolerated satire at its own expense, but couldn't get enough of it.

It is generally agreed that at some point in his career someone christened Offenbach "the Mozart of the Champs-Élysées," but this is where the agreement ends. While some of the sources attribute the saying to Richard Wagner, others think that Rossini said it. It is also a matter of dispute whether it was meant as praise, as a lefthanded compliment, as an ironic putdown, or as an outright slur. Jean-Bernard Piat's advice is not to use the expression at all.[6]

References

  1. ^ Offenbach, Jacques by Andrew Lamb, in 'The New Grove Dictionary of Opera', ed. Stanley Sadie (London, 1992) ISBN 0-333-73432-7
  2. ^ Ardoin, John: The Tales of Offenbach (online)
  3. ^ Zola, Émile: Nana, translated with an introduction by George Holden, Penguin Classics, London 1972
  4. ^ Zola, Émile: La féerie et l'opérette IV/V in Le naturalisme au théâtre, 1881, (online)
  5. ^ Kracauer, Siegfried. Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of his Time, tr. Gwenda David and Eric Mosbacher. New York: Zone Books, 2002 (o.G: 1937)
  6. ^ Piat, Jean-Bernard. Guide du mélomane averti, Le Livre de Poche 8026. Paris 1992

Sources

  • Ardoin, John: The Tales of Offenbach (online)
  • Faris, Alexander: Jacques Offenbach. London: Faber & Faber, 1980. ISBN 0-571-11147-5
  • Faris, Alexander in: Les contes d'Hoffmann. EMI Records.
  • Gammond, Peter. Offenbach. London: Midas Books, 1980
  • Gänzl, Kurt. The Encyclopedia of Musical Theatre (3 Volumes). New York: Schirmer Books, 2001.
  • Harding, James. Jacques Offenbach: A Biography. London: John Calder, 1980
  • Kracauer, Siegfried. Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of his Time, tr. Gwenda David and Eric Mosbacher. New York: Zone Books, 2002 (o.G: 1937)
  • Lamb, Andrew on Offenbach, Jacques, in 'The New Grove Dictionary of Opera', ed. Stanley Sadie (London, 1992) ISBN 0-333-73432-7
  • Offenbach, Jacques: "The Story of a Waltz" in The Gaiety, Spring 2006, pp 28-33. Editor: Roderick Murray.
  • Piat, Jean-Bernard. Guide du mélomane averti, Le Livre de Poche 8026. Paris 1992
  • Traubner, Richard. Operetta: A Theatrical History. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1983.
  • Zola, Émile: La féerie et l'opérette IV/V in Le naturalisme au théâtre, 1881, (online)
  • Zola, Émile: Nana, translated with an introduction by George Holden, Penguin Classics, London 1972
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