Artist Name

Jacques Offenbach

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2001 - Hoffmanns Erzählungen

2001 - La Belle Hélène

1999 - Les Contes D'Hoffmann: Highlights (Orchestre de la Suisse Ro

1999 - Gaité Parisienne / Offenbachiana
missing

1996 - Les Contes d'Hoffmann (Orchestre et Chœur de l'Opéra de Ly

1995 - Recital

1993 - Overtures (Wiener Symphoniker feat. conductor: Bruno Weil)

1992 - Les contes d'Hoffmann (Staatskapelle Dresden, feat. conducto

1989 - Les Contes d'Hoffmann (Orchestre National de France feat. co

1989 - La Périchole (Chœurs et Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse

1988 - La Vie Parisienne (Chœurs et Orchestre du Capitole de Toulo

1988 - Hoffmanns Erzählungen - Querschnitt (Münchner Rundfunkorch
missing

1988 - Highlights from Orpheus In The Underworld (English National

1988 - La Périchole (extraits)

1986 - Suites pour deux violoncelles

1986 - Les Contes d'Hoffmann (L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande feat

1985 - La Belle Hélène (Chœurs et Orchestre du Capitole de Toulo

1984 - Offenbach: Gaîté parisienne / Gounod: Faust Ballet

1982 - Overtures (Philharmonia Orchestra feat. conductor: Neville M

1981 - Ouvertüren overtures (Berliner philharmoniker, herbert von

1970 - La Belle Hélène (Orchestre des Concerts Lamoureux feat. co

1967 - Barbe-Bleue (cond. Jean Doussard)

1966 - Gaite Parisienne (New Philharmonia Orchestra feat. conductor

Members
1 Male

Origin
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French

Genre
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Composer

Style
Classical

Mood
---

Born

1819

Active
1819 to 1880

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Alternate Name
Offenbach

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Jacques Offenbach - Barcarolle

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Artist Biography
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Jacques Offenbach (20 June 1819 – 5 October 1880) was a German-French composer, cellist and impresario of the romantic period. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr. and Arthur Sullivan. His best-known works were continually revived during the 20th century, and many of his operettas continue to be staged in the 21st. The Tales of Hoffmann remains part of the standard opera repertory.
Born in Cologne, the son of a synagogue cantor, Offenbach showed early musical talent. At the age of 14, he was accepted as a student at the Paris Conservatoire but found academic study unfulfilling and left after a year. From 1835 to 1855 he earned his living as a cellist, achieving international fame, and as a conductor. His ambition, however, was to compose comic pieces for the musical theatre. Finding the management of Paris' Opéra-Comique company uninterested in staging his works, in 1855 he leased a small theatre in the Champs-Élysées. There he presented a series of his own small-scale pieces, many of which became popular.
In 1858, Offenbach produced his first full-length operetta, Orphée aux enfers ("Orpheus in the Underworld"), which was exceptionally well received and has remained one of his most played works. During the 1860s, he produced at least 18 full-length operettas, as well as more one-act pieces. His works from this period included La belle Hélène (1864), La Vie parisienne (1866), La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein (1867) and La Périchole (1868). The risqué humour (often about sexual intrigue) and mostly gentle satiric barbs in these pieces, together with Offenbach's facility for melody, made them internationally known, and translated versions were successful in Vienna, London and elsewhere in Europe.
Offenbach became associated with the Second French Empire of Napoleon III; the emperor and his court were genially satirised in many of Offenbach's operettas. Napoleon III personally granted him French citizenship and the Légion d'Honneur. With the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Offenbach found himself out of favour in Paris because of his imperial connections and his German birth. He remained successful in Vienna and London, however. He re-established himself in Paris during the 1870s, with revivals of some of his earlier favourites and a series of new works, and undertook a popular U.S. tour. In his last years he strove to finish The Tales of Hoffmann, but died before the premiere of the opera, which has entered the standard repertory in versions completed or edited by other musicians.