Jacques Offenbach

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About Jacques Offenbach

Jacques Offenbach is probably most widely known for the high-kicking Can-Can (more properly “Galop infernal”) that enlivens his satirical 1858 operetta Orphée aux enfers (Orpheus in the Underworld). More hits followed during the 1860s, such as La Belle Hélène (1864) and La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein (1867). Born in Cologne in 1819, but French by adoption, Offenbach composed a hundred or so comic operas that showcase his gift for lampooning social mores, not to mention the music of composers such as Berlioz and Wagner. Fueled by a flair for supple melody, vivacity, and a piquant wit, they drew the admiration of Bizet, Debussy, and Rossini (who dubbed him the Mozart of the Champs-Élysées). Their influence also proved international, including the musical theater of Gilbert & Sullivan in London and Johann Strauss II in Vienna. Harboring ambitions for serious opera, Offenbach composed the unsuccessful Die Rheinnixen in 1864, while Les Contes d’Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann), unfinished at the time of his death in 1880, posthumously secured an enduring triumph.

HOMETOWN
Cologne, Germany
BORN
June 20, 1819
GENRE
Classical

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