Jacques Offenbach

Jacques Offenbach, a native of Cologne, came to Paris in 1833 and made himself at home. By1848, which as it happened, was the year of the overthrow of the Orléanist monarchy, Offenbach had risen to become head of the orchestra of the Théâtre-Français.

Offenbach is a towering figure in the development of comic opera, or operetta, or as it became known in French opéra bouffe. Among his best-known works in this vein: Orphée aux enfers (Orpheus in the Underworld) (1858), La Belle Hélène(1864),and La Grande Duchesse de Gérolstein (1867).

Perhaps the most beloved of his works, though, is one that was never performed until after his death, Contes d’Hoffman (Tales of Hoffman), which was based loosely on the historical figure of Ernst Theodor Amadeus (E.T.A.) Hoffman, an influential German author of fantasies. Offenbach and his collaborators re-worked some of Hoffman’s stories to make of him a character therein.