Offenbach, Jacques

Offenbach, Jacques

 orig. Jacob Offenbach

(born June 20, 1819, Cologne—died Oct. 5, 1880, Paris, France) German-born French composer. Son of a cantor, he studied at the Paris Conservatoire but had to leave for lack of funds. He first wrote theatre music as conductor of the Théâtre-Français (from 1850); in 1855 he opened his own theatre, Bouffes-Parisiens, for which he wrote many celebrated one-act works. He began writing longer operettas and had a string of hits, including Orpheus in the Underworld (1858), La Belle Hélène (1864), La Vie Parisienne (1866), and The Grand Duchess of Gérolstein (1867). Offenbach is credited with writing in a fluent, elegant style and with a highly developed sense of both characterization and satire. He spent his last three years on his only grand opera, The Tales of Hoffmann, which remained unfinished at his death and was first produced in 1881.