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- Offenbach, Jacques [Jacob]
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Off-beat.Any impulse in a measured rhythmic pattern except the first (called the Downbeat); the term is commonly applied to rhythms that emphasize the weak beats of the bar (ex.1). The impulse that immediately precedes – and anticipates – the downbeat of a bar is called the Upbeat. See also Rhythm. Offenbach, Jacques [Jacob](b Cologne, 20 June 1819; d Paris, 5 Oct 1880). French composer of German origin. He was, with Johann Strauss (ii), one of the two composers of outstanding significance in popular music of the 19th century and the composer of some of the most exhilaratingly gay and tuneful music ever written. His opera Les contes d’Hoffmann has retained a place in the international repertory, but his most significant achievements lie in the field of operetta. Orphée aux enfers, La belle Hélène, La vie parisienne, La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein and La Périchole remain outstanding examples of the French and international operetta repertory. Moreover, it was through the success of Offenbach’s works abroad that operetta became an established international genre, producing outstanding national exponents in Strauss, Sullivan and Lehár and evolving into the 20th-century musical. 1. Life. 2. Works. WORKS BIBLIOGRAPHY ANDREW LAMB Offenbach, Jacques 1. Life.His father, born Isaac Juda Eberst, left his native Offenbach am Main in about 1800 for Cologne, where he became known as ‘Der Offenbacher’ and then simply Offenbach. He earned a living from bookbinding, music teaching and composition, and was later cantor at a synagogue in Cologne. Jacob was the second son and the seventh of ten children, and was born a short distance from the square in Cologne which today bears his name. He was first taught the violin, but at the age of nine took up the cello. With his brother Julius (1815–80) who played the violin, and sister Isabella (1817–91) at the piano he formed a trio which played in Cologne bars. He studied at first with Joseph Alexander and then with Bernhard Breuer; he dedicated his first published composition to the latter in 1833. In November of that year Isaac took Julius and Jacob to Paris in search of further tuition. There a place was obtained for Jacob at the Conservatoire, and positions were found for the two boys in a synagogue choir before Isaac returned to Cologne. In Paris the two boys were soon known as Jules and Jacques. The latter left the Conservatoire after a year’s study with Vaslin, and after brief periods with two orchestras he found a position in the orchestra of the Opéra-Comique. There he played beside Hippolyte Seligmann, and received further tuition with Seligmann’s own teacher Louis Norblin. He also met Halévy, who gave him some composition lessons. In the summers of 1836 and 1837 some waltzes were performed in the Jardin Turc under Jullien, including one, Rebecca, on 15th-century Hebrew themes. After leaving the orchestra of the Opéra-Comique in 1838, he made the acquaintance of Flotow, through whom he gained entry to Paris salons, performing with him jointly composed pieces for cello and piano. Through contacts made in the salons he obtained pupils and also received a commission for a score for a vaudeville Pascal et Chambord produced in March 1839. In January 1839 he gave his first public concert with his brother Jules. During the 1840s he continued his career as a cello virtuoso, appearing in Paris in 1841 with Anton Rubinstein and in Cologne in 1843 with Liszt. In May 1844 he visited London, performing at concerts of the Musical Union with Joachim and Mendelssohn and at an Ascot Week banquet at Windsor Castle. That August, after becoming a Roman Catholic, he married Herminie d’Alcain; he had met her at the salon of her mother, whose second husband was related to a London concert agent, John Mitchell. Meanwhile, his attempts to get stage works, including the one-act L’alcôve, accepted by the Opéra-Comique were unsuccessful, and he was forced to arrange concerts of his own to have them performed. His hopes of greater success with Adam’s Opéra National were dashed by the Revolution of 1848, during which he temporarily returned to Cologne. In 1850 he was appointed conductor at the Théâtre Français, but he continued to have little success in getting his stage works accepted until the Exhibition year of 1855. Then, no doubt emboldened by the success of Hervé’s Folies-Nouvelles, where Offenbach’s own Oyayaye, ou La reine des îles had been accepted, he rented for the Exhibition season the tiny wooden Théâtre Marigny in the Champs Elysées. With a hastily compiled programme of short comic pieces, the theatre opened as the Bouffes-Parisiens on 5 July. With occasional changes of programme, the entertainments were a big success of the Exhibition season, enabling Offenbach to give up his position at the Théâtre Français and transfer to winter quarters at the Théâtre Comte (Théâtre des Jeunes Elèves) in the Passage Choiseul. The following summer he moved again to the Théâtre Marigny, but from the following winter settled permanently in the Salle Choiseul. Besides his own works his repertory embraced those of other composers, including Adam, Delibes, Duprato, Gastinel and Jonas as well as adaptations of Mozart’s Der Schauspieldirektor and Rossini’s Il Signor Bruschino. In 1856 his competition for young composers attracted 78 entrants: the winners were Bizet and Lecocq, with their settings of Le Docteur Miracle. The continuing success of the Bouffes persuaded John Mitchell to bring them to London. The entire company (including Jules Offenbach, who was leader of the orchestra) opened an eight-week season at St James’s Theatre in May 1857 and also included a performance before the exiled Queen Marie-Amélie at Claremont. Initially Offenbach’s licence restricted him to pieces for only two or three stage performers, but the loosening of restrictions gradually enabled him to produce more ambitious works. The two-act Orphée aux enfers (1858) was a big success and the prototype of the larger-scale operettas, though for a time he continued to concentrate mainly on one-act works. In 1860 a two-act ballet Le papillon was produced at the Opéra and the three-act Barkouf at the Opéra-Comique, without giving him any greater acceptance in more respectable circles. Although he resigned as director of the Bouffes in January 1862, he continued to write mainly for that theatre and for the summer theatre at Bad Ems. In 1860 he had become a naturalized Frenchman and in August 1861 was appointed a Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur. His family by now consisted of four daughters and a son Auguste (1862–83), and besides his Paris home in the rue Lafitte he also owned a Villa Orphée in the fashionable Normandy resort of Etretat. His opéras bouffes had by now become established abroad, particularly in Vienna, at first in pirated versions and then under the composer’s own direction. While he was in Vienna in 1864 his romantic opera Die Rheinnixen was performed at the Hofoper, and he composed a waltz Abendblätter in competition with the Morgenblätter of Johann Strauss (ii), whom he is also reputed to have encouraged to write operettas. From the same year dates the period of his greatest successes with La belle Hélène (1864) followed by Barbe-bleue (1866), La vie parisienne (1866), La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein (1867) and La Périchole (1868). During the Exhibition season of 1867 his works filled three Paris theatres, but thereafter his success began to wane. Popular taste in the musical theatre changed after the civil war of 1870–71, for much of the duration of which he was abroad in San Sebastian, Italy, London and Vienna. During the 1870s it was the more escapist works of Lecocq that attracted the public, although Offenbach’s own new works continued to be performed. On 1 June 1873 he took over the management of the Théâtre de la Gaîté, where he produced spectacular new versions of Orphée aux enfers and Geneviève de Brabant. But he was a poor businessman, and losses suffered on a production of Sardou’s La haine in 1874 forced him into bankruptcy. He then composed music for a Christmas piece Whittington (1874) for the Alhambra in London, and in an endeavour to make up some of his losses he embarked on a trip to the USA for the Philadelphia centennial Exhibition of 1876. He gave some 40 concerts in New York and Philadelphia as well as conducting performances of La vie parisienne and La jolie parfumeuse. On his return he published a volume of his impressions of the USA. In his last years he experienced success in London with Madame Favart (1878) and in Paris with La fille du tambour-major (1879) as well as with revivals of earlier works such as Orphée aux enfers with Hervé as Jupiter for the Exhibition season of 1878. However, his main preoccupation was with the score of the fantastic opera Les contes d’Hoffmann. During 1880 he was working on the score at the Pavillon Henri IV in Saint Germain-en-Laye, but in September worsening health forced him to return to Paris. There he died in October, the gout from which he suffered having affected his heart. At the request of his family, the score of Les contes d’Hoffmann was completed by Guiraud and that of an operetta Belle Lurette by Delibes.
2. Works.As with all stage works for the genre, the success of Offenbach’s operettas depended a good deal on the librettists and performers. In this respect Offenbach was both well served and skilful at discovering talent. Like Sullivan, and unlike Johann Strauss (ii), he was consistently blessed with workable subjects and genuinely witty librettos. His chief librettist, Ludovic Halévy (1834–1908), was one of the leading French theatrical writers of the time, and was given his chance at the age of 21 in writing material for the opening night of the Bouffes-Parisiens in 1855. Offenbach’s leading lady Hortense Schneider (1833–1920), who enjoyed immense personal success in La belle Hélène, Barbe bleue, La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein and La Périchole, was also discovered by Offenbach and given a role in Le violoneux as early as August 1855. Likewise Zulma Bouffar, star of La vie parisienne and Les brigands, was discovered by Offenbach himself. Offenbach’s sound theatrical judgment extended to his part in selecting and shaping the subjects he used. Many of these were satirical treatments of familiar tales, for example myths (Orphée aux enfers, La belle Hélène) or stories well known in France (Geneviève de Brabant, Barbe-bleue, Robinson Crusoé), while others satirized contemporary society and politics (La vie parisienne (fig.2), La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein). His one-act works include similar examples, such as M. Choufleuri restera chez lui le … which satirized Paris salons, while others were slight comic sketches such as the highly successful Les deux aveugles. He satirized particularly the regime of Napoleon III, and it was with the fall of Napoleon III that Offenbach’s own success declined. The humour of the pieces was rarely very subtle in purely musical terms, in keeping with the requirements of his audiences. Effect was often achieved by quoting familiar music, the satire being not so much in the treatment of the themes themselves as by introducing the themes in incongruous surroundings. Examples of such quotations are the introduction of music from Les Huguenots in Ba-ta-clan, Gluck’s ‘Che farò’ in Orphée aux enfers, the patriotic trio from Guillaume Tell in La belle Hélène, and Donizetti’s La fille du régiment in La fille du tambour-major. Other comic devices were the introduction of parts for animals (Barkouf) and the setting of gibberish (Ba-ta-clan). He further exploited incongruity, for example in Orphée aux enfers by providing a cancan for the gods, and in La belle Hélène by setting the phrase ‘Un vile séducteur’ to his most lilting waltz tune and by building up a grandiose operatic ensemble around the banal phrase ‘L’homme à la pomme’. He also exploited the natural flexibility of the French language by varying accentuation, and a notable device was the breaking-up of words as in La Périchole: Aux maris ré, Aux maris cal, Aux maris ci, Aux maris trants, Aux maris récalcitrants. All this he backed up with simple but effective devices of a purely musical nature. His tunes are very often built upon a rising phrase and in a major key, but he achieved remarkable variety of mood by varying the rhythmic pattern. Noteworthy too is his gradual speeding-up of the finale of an act to achieve an exciting climax. His vocal writing produced outstanding lyrical examples such as the tenor’s ‘Au mont Ida’ (La belle Hélène) and rumbustious comic songs such as the Gendarmes’ Duet (Geneviève de Brabant); but when he allowed himself to break away from straightforward rhythmic patterns, he produced examples of sensitive shaping of phrases in solos written for Hortense Schneider in La belle Hélène and La Périchole. The most individual feature of Offenbach’s orchestration lies in his use of brass to heighten the impact and excitement of climaxes. He generally made effective use of wind instruments, but for much of his work he was restricted in orchestral resources and in any case concerned to ensure that the orchestra did not obscure the words. In fact, it is not always his own orchestration that is heard. The well-known overture to Orphée aux enfers, for example, was composed on Offenbach’s themes by Carl Binder (1816–60) for the Vienna production of 1860. Through this overture and particularly through the famous cancan, Orphée aux enfers has remained Offenbach’s best-known operetta (fig.3), though a consensus as to the best of his operettas would probably prefer La vie parisienne for its sparkle, La Périchole for its charm and La belle Hélène for its all-round brilliance. Offenbach’s talents were often stretched by the need to work at breakneck speed to produce new works. For the same reason he often re-used material. Thus La chanson de Fortunio (1861), one of his best one-act works, was written around a song composed for Alfred de Musset’s Le chandelier at the Théâtre Français in 1850. A valse des rayons in his 1860 ballet Le papillon, which reappeared in his 1864 opera Die Rheinnixen and in the ballet music of Le Roi Carotte (1872), later achieved its most familiar form when used as an apache dance for a Moulin Rouge revue in 1908. Die Rheinnixen also included a Vaterland Lied composed in Germany in 1848, and was itself the source of the music of the celebrated Barcarolle in Les contes d’Hoffmann. During his lifetime Offenbach’s success brought a considerable amount of disapproving comment from those who resented the ‘naughtiness’ of the French stage and the lack of pretence at any elevated form of art, or who considered his use of other composers’ music irreverent. Wagner, whom Offenbach parodied in his revue Le carnaval des revues (1860), referred to ‘the warmth of the dung-heap’, though his attitude towards Offenbach later mellowed. The entry in the first edition of Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians typified the attitude of more elevated music circles of the time, concluding that ‘it is melancholy to predict that of all these musical bouffonneries little or nothing will remain; since in order to live, a work must possess either style or passion, whilst these too often display merely a vulgar scepticism, and a determination to be funny even at the cost of propriety and taste’. His standing was undoubtedly helped by the success in more respectable circles of Les contes d’Hoffmann. The libretto, by Jules Barbier (1825–1901), was based on a play by Barbier and Michel Carré (1819–72) produced in Paris in 1851; it portrayed three stories of the author E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776–1822) as episodes of his love life. Although without the frivolous touches of the operettas, a good deal of their ready melodic appeal was carried over into the opéra comique, and in addition there was some powerful dramatic writing, particularly in the Antonia act (the three central acts are commonly known by the names of the heroines of the three episodes). The fact that the work is not as homogeneous as the best of the operettas may not be altogether Offenbach’s fault. At his death he apparently left the work in a complete piano score, but to meet the requirements of the Opéra-Comique, Guiraud not only completed the orchestration but also added recitatives. In addition it was belatedly decided to omit the Giulietta act with some of its music hastily redistributed. The work was first published in this corrupt version, and over the years it has been subjected to all manner of further variants. In recent years, thanks largely to the conductor and musicologist Antonio de Almeida, much original material has come to light; but there can never be a definitive score of a work that Offenbach never quite completed. The appeal of individual numbers of Les contes d’Hoffmann and the fantastic nature of the story has kept the work in the international opera repertory. The lack of a recognized international operetta tradition formerly meant that revivals of the operettas were less regular. The best tunes, however, retained their wide popularity, particularly through their use in the score arranged by Manuel Rosenthal for Leonid Massine’s ballet Gaîté parisienne for the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo in 1938. More recently, the greater attention paid to the classical operetta since World War II has made the best of Offenbach’s operettas familiar again and permitted fuller appreciation of his standing as the supreme master of the genre. Offenbach, Jacques WORKSall first performed and published in Paris, unless otherwise stated
operettas and opéras comiques
vaudevilles and incidental music
vocal(selective list)
ballets
dance music(selective list)
cello(selective list)
Offenbach, Jacques BIBLIOGRAPHYGrove 1(G. Chouquet) E. de Mirecourt [C.-J.-B. Jacquot]: Auber, Offenbach (Paris, 1869) Argus [P. Gille]: Célébrités dramatiques: Jacques Offenbach (Paris, 1872) J. Offenbach: Offenbach en Amérique, notes d’un musicien en voyage (Paris, 1877; Eng. trans. as Orpheus in America, 1958) A. Jullien: ‘M. Offenbach, critique: sa profession de foi musicale’, Airs variés (Paris, 1877), 347–58 A. Wolff: ‘Jacques Offenbach’, La gloire à Paris (Paris, 1886) A. Martinet: Offenbach: sa vie et son oeuvre (Paris, 1887) C. Bellaigue: Etudes musicales et nouvelles silhouettes de musiciens (Paris, 1898) P. Bekker: Jacques Offenbach (Berlin, 1909) L. Schmidt: J. Offenbach (Berlin, 1912) R. Northcott: Jacques Offenbach: a Sketch of his Life and a Record of his Operas (London, 1917)
K. Soldan, ed.: Jacques Offenbach: Beiträge zu seinem Leben und seinen Werken (Berlin, 1924) R. Brancour: Offenbach (Paris, 1929) A. Henseler: Der Aufstieg des Kölners Jacques Offenbach: ein Musikerleben in Bildern (Berlin, 1931) S. Kracauer: Jacques Offenbach und das Paris seiner Zeit (Amsterdam, 1937/R; Eng. trans., 1937) J. Brindejont-Offenbach: Offenbach, mon grand-père (Paris, 1940) Le siècle d’Offenbach (Paris, 1958) A. Decaux: Offenbach, roi du Second Empire (Paris, 1958, 3/1975) G. Hughes: Composers of Operetta (London, 1962) I.I. Sollertinsky: Offenbach (Moscow, 1962) O. Schneidereit: Jacques Offenbach (Leipzig, 1966, 2/1970) P.W. Jacob: Jacques Offenbach in selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten (Hamburg, 1969, 2/1980) A. Lamb: ‘How Offenbach Conquered London’, Opera, xx (1969), 932–8 R.L. Folstein: ‘A Bibliography on Jacques Offenbach’, CMc, xii (1971), 116–28 R. Pourvoyeur: ‘Verne et Offenbach’, Bulletin de la Société Jules Verne, no.20 (1971), 87; no.21 (1972), 112 F. Mailer: ‘Jacques Offenbach – ein Pariser in Wien’ , ÖMz, xxvii (1972), 246–62 R. Pourvoyeur: Jacques Offenbach: Essay in Toengepaste Muziek- en Toneelsociologie (Brussels, 1977; rev. as Offenbach: Idillio e parodia, 1980) O. Schneidereit: Tödlicher Cancan (Leipzig, 1978) G. Hauger: ‘Offenbach in English: a Checklist’, Theatre Notebook, xxxiv (1979–80), 9–14; xxxv (1980–81), 87–8; xxxvi (1981–2), 34; xxxvii (1982–3), 31–2 A. Faris: Jacques Offenbach (London, 1980) P. Gammond: Offenbach: his Life and Times (Tunbridge Wells, 1980, 2/1981) J. Harding: Jacques Offenbach: a Biography (London, 1980) A. Lamb, G. Hauger and H. Macdonald: ‘Jacques Offenbach, 1819–1880’, MT, cxxi (1980), 615–21 H.-K. Metzger and R. Riehn, eds.: Jacques Offenbach (Munich, 1980) K. Pahlen, ed.: Hoffmanns Erzählungen (Munich, 1980, 2/1982) D. Rissin: Offenbach, ou Le rire en musique (Paris, 1980) Offenbach 1819–1880: a Tribute (London, 1980) F. Oeser: Jacques Offenbach: Hoffmanns Erzählungen: Quellenkritische Neuausgabe: Vorlagenbericht (Kassel, 1981) W. Kirsch and R. Dietrich, eds.: Jacques Offenbach: Komponist und Weltbürger (Mainz, 1985) G. Brandstetter, ed.: Jacques Offenbachs Hoffmanns Erzählungen (Laaber, 1988) A. Lamb: ‘Tales of a Monte Carlo Hoffmann’, Opera, xlii (1991), 634–7 P. Goninet, ed.: Jacques Offenbach: lettres à Henri Meilhac et Ludovic Halévy (Paris, 1994) R. Pourvoyet: Offenbach (Paris, 1994) J.-C. Yon and L. Fraison: Offenbach (Paris, 1994) [exhibition catalogue] A. Lamb: An Offenbach Family Album (Croydon, 1997) J. Kaufman: Isaac Offenbach und sein Sohn Jacques (Tübingen, 1998) R. Franke, ed.: Offenbach und die Schauplätze seines Musiktheaters (Laaber, 1999) A. de Almeida: Jacques Offenbach: a Thematic Catalogue of his Works (Oxford, forthcoming) Directory: download -> 3062a7ba-8b89-4266-8568-82026f790e50 -> Bibliografia%20Básica download -> Northern England’s set-jetting locations download -> Bbc archives: Beyond the programme download download -> Occupational health and safety download -> Dynatest 3031 lwd light Weight Deflectometer download -> Forth coming competitive exams download -> English Olympiad Tasks: 10 th form Аудіювання, 10 клас. Текст download -> Brush High School Morning Announcements Friday, September 05, 2014 all school download -> Year 9 The Arts — Music download -> Years 7 and 8 standard elaborations — Australian Curriculum: Music draft Bibliografia%20Básica -> Faà di Bruno, Giovanni Matteo [Horatio, Orazio] Fabbri, Anna Maria Download 11.95 Mb. Share with your friends:
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