Home | Archive | In memoriam

Jacques Offenbach 1819–1880

Since our last number appeared death has removed from the world a man who played on its stage a somewhat prominent if not, strictly speaking, a distinguished part. The event can hardly be called premature. Jacques Offenbach had his day, and when the sun set he went to sleep – a process quite in the order of nature. His career afforded another illustration of the fact that when the time calls for the man, the man usually appears. The Second Empire wanted a representative musician, one not learned, nor even a maker of elegant vers de société, but an artist willing and able to tune his lyre to the pitch of reckless abandon characteristic of almost the saddest episode in the changeful history of France. Offenbach supplied this want as, perhaps, none other could. Neither a musician nor a poet, but a master of catching, exciting, and rhythmical tune, his art, allied to that of such dramas as ‘La Grande Duchesse’ and ‘La Belle Hélène,’ easily carried him to the front. The Second Empire stamped upon him its approval, and when it fell, amid the blood and ruin of Sedan, Offenbach’s sun began to decline. At the time of his death he was aspiring to a place on the stage of opéra comique, and some of the music in his unfinished work was sung, to sacred words, at his funeral. Truly, this man looking back upon the period when Paris saluted the Offenbach of ‘La Grande Duchesse’ as a god, and Mdlle. Schneider as his prophetess, could repeat words of the preacher, and say, ‘All is vanity!’

Offenbach was born at Cologne in 1819, of a Jewish family which gave a well-known chanter to the synagogue there. In 1842, he removed to Paris, and tried his fortune as a violoncellist, in which capacity he afterwards came to London, but without obtaining great success in either capital. He was, however, a man not easily daunted. Endowed with marvellous assurance he pushed his way upwards, as an unscrupulous athlete works through a crowd, and, in 1847, obtained the position of chef d’orchestre at the Théâtre Français. This he retained for several years, publishing meanwhile some small musical pieces which enjoyed a good deal of favour, and brought his name well before the public. In 1855, Offenbach dropped into the groove for which he was best fitted, and opened a little theatre, called Les Bouffes Parisiens, in the Champs Elysées, where his own works were performed. This, however, was but a summer theatre; and, encouraged by the support of the public, Offenbach took the little salle in the Galerie de Choiseul, transferring the name of his Champs Elysées establishment, as well as the establishment itself, and giving a first performance on Christmas Day, 1855. Here he remained till 1866, and here his greatest triumphs were achieved. In 1872, Offenbach opened the Gaité theatre, quitting it in 1876, and soon after making a voyage to America, which turned out disastrously for himself, but enabled him to write a very characteristic and amusing book. Some time before death overtook him his health began to give way, yet the success of ‘Madame Favart,’ and the merit generally accorded to such portions of his unfinished opéra comique as have been heard, show that his hand had not lost its cunning even in his closing days. As a musician Offenbach filled but a lowly place, but he was too much a man of his time not to call for the notice here given.

Musical Times, November 1880