Offenbach

Offenbach, JACQUES, a composer of opera bouffe, born of Jewish parents at Cologne, 21st June 1819. He came to Paris in 1833, and settled there, becoming chef d'orchestre in the Théâtre Français in Paris in 1848, and manager of the Bouffes Parisiennes in 1855. He died 5th October 1880. Offenbach composed a vast number of light, lively operettas, La Mariage aux Lanternes, La Fille d'Elezondo, &c., perfect as musical trifles; but the productions by which he is best known are a series of burlesque operas, in virtue of which he must be regarded as the inventor of the modern form of opera bouffe. Amongst the most notable are Orphée aux Enfers (1858), La Belle Hélène, La Barbe Bleu, La Grande Duchesse, Geneviève de Brabant, and Roi Carotte. Madame Favart (1878) became almost as popular in England as in France.