Jacques Offenbach

Jacques Offenbach was born Jacques Oberst in Cologne, Germany, on June 20, 1819; his father was a cantor in one of the city synagogues. After attending the Paris Conservatory, Offenbach played the cello in the orchestra of the Opéra-Comique. Then, in 1849 he became conductor at the Théâtre Français. In 1850 he achieved his initial success as a composer with the song, “Chanson de Fortunio” interpolated into a production of the Alfred de Musset drama, Chandelier. Three years later his first operetta, Pepito, was produced at the Théâtre des Variétés. Between 1855 and 1866 he directed his own theater where operettas were given, Les Bouffes Parisiens, which opened on July 5, 1855 with a performance of one of his own works, Les Deux aveugles. For his theater Offenbach wrote many operettas including his masterwork in that genre, Orpheus in the Underworld, in 1858. After closing down the Bouffes Parisiens, Offenbach went to Germany and Austria where he had produced several more of his operettas. But in 1864 he was back in Paris. The première of La Belle Hélène at the Variétés that year enjoyed a spectacular success. Among his later operettas were La Vie parisienne (1866), La Grande Duchesse de Gérolstein (1867), and La Périchole (1868). In 1877 he toured the United States, an account of which was issued in America in 1957 under the title of Orpheus in America. Towards the end of his life Offenbach devoted himself to the writing of his one and only grand opera, The Tales of Hoffmann (Les Contes d’Hoffmann). He did not live to see it performed. He died in Paris on October 5, 1880, about half a year before the première of his opera at the Opéra-Comique on February 10, 1881.

Offenbach was the genius of the opéra-bouffe, or French operetta. His music never lacked spontaneity or gaiety, sparkle or engaging lyricism. His writing had the warmth of laughter, the sting of satire, and the caress of sincere and heartfelt emotion. His lovable melodies woo and win the listener. The lightness of his touch and the freshness of his humor give voice to the joy of good living. Like his celebrated Viennese contemporary, Johann Strauss II, Offenbach is a giant figure in semi-classical music. To the lighter musical repertory he brings the invention and imagination of a master.

The Apache Dance is the dashing music that invariably accompanies a performance of French Apache dances, though there are few that know Offenbach wrote it. Actually, the Apache Dance is an adaptation of the main melody of a waltz (“Valse des Papillons”) from Offenbach’s comic opera, Le Roi Carotte (1872).

La Belle Hélène (Fair Helen), first performed in Paris on December 17, 1864, draws material for laughter and satire from mythology. Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy prepared the text which is based on the love of Paris and Helen that led to the Trojan war. But this story is told with tongue-in-cheek frivolity, and the life of the Greeks is gaily parodied. One of the most familiar musical excerpts from La Belle Hélène is whirling Can-Can music—the Can-Can being the voluptuous French dance which first became popular in Paris in 1830 and which contributed to the quadrille high kicks, skirt-lifting and other suggestive and at times vulgar movements. (Offenbach also wrote brilliant Can-Can music for Orpheus in the Underworld, Barbe-Bleue, and La Vie parisienne.) Other delightful episodes from this operetta are Helen’s invocation with chorus, “Amours divins,” and her highly lyrical airs, “On me nomme Hélène,” “Un mari Sage,” and “La vrai! je ne suis pas coupable.”

The Galop is almost as much a specialty with Offenbach as the Can-Can. This is a spirited, highly rhythmic dance of German origin introduced in Paris in 1829. Two of Offenbach’s best known Galops appear respectively in La Grande Duchess de Gérolstein (1867) and Geneviève de Brabant (1859).

It is perhaps not generally known that the famous “Marine’s Hymn” familiar to all Americans as “From the Halls of Montezuma” also comes out of Geneviève de Brabant. The Hymn was copyrighted by the Marine Corps in 1919. It is known that the lyric was written in 1847 by an unidentified Marine. The melody was taken from one of the airs in Offenbach’s operetta, Geneviève de Brabant.

Orpheus in the Underworld (Orphée aux enfers) is Offenbach’s masterwork, first produced in Paris on October 21, 1858. This delightful comic opera, with book by Hector Crémieux and Ludovic Halévy, is a satire on the Olympian gods in general, and specifically on the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice. Orpheus in the Underworld was not at first successful since audiences did not seem to find much mirth in a satire on Olympian gods. But when a powerful French critic, Jules Janin, violently attacked it as a “profanation of holy and glorious antiquity,” the curiosity of Parisians was aroused, and the crowds began swarming into the theater. Suddenly Orpheus in the Underworld became a vogue; it was the thing to see and discuss; its music (particularly the waltzes, galops, and quadrilles) were everywhere played. The operetta had a run of 227 performances.

The Overture is a perennial favorite of salon and pop orchestras throughout the world. It opens briskly, then progresses to the first subject, a light and gay tune for strings. The heart of the overture is the second main melody, a sentimental song first heard in solo violin, and later repeated by full orchestra.

The Can-Can music in Orpheus in the Underworld is also famous. Much of its effect is due to the fact that Offenbach presented the can-can immediately after a stately minuet in order to emphasize the contrast between two periods in French history. A contemporary described this Can-Can music as follows: “This famous dance ... has carried away our entire generation as would a tempestuous whirlwind. Already the first sounds of the furiously playing instruments seem to indicate the call to a whole world to awake and plunge into the wild dance. These rhythms appear to have the intention of shocking all the resigned, all the defeated, out of their lethargy and, by the physical and moral upheaval which they arouse, to throw the whole fabric of society into confusion.”

The Tales of Hoffmann (Les Contes d’Hoffmann) is Offenbach’s only serious opera; but even here we encounter some semi-classical favorites. This opera, one of the glories of the French lyric theater, was based on stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann, adapted into a libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré. It concerns the three tragic loves of the poet Hoffmann: Olympia, a mechanical doll; Giulietta, who is captive to a magician; and Antonia, a victim of consumption.

The “Barcarolle” from this opera is surely one of the most popular selections from the world of opera. It opens the second act. Outside Giulietta’s palace in Venice, Hoffmann hears the strains of this music sung by his friend Nicklausse and Giulietta as they praise the beauty of the Venetian night. Harp arpeggios suggest the lapping of the Venetian waters in the canal, providing a soothing background to one of the most radiant melodies in French music. It is interesting to remark that Offenbach did not write this melody directly for this opera. He had previously used it in 1864 as a ghost song for an opera-ballet, Die Rheinnixen.

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