Operetten jacques offenbach biography

Kurt Gänzl

The Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre

1 January, 2001

The son of a German bookbinder, music-teacher and cantor called Eberst, but known as Offenbach, the young Jacob was given a good musical education from an early age.

When he was 14 years old, his father took him to Paris where he secured a place at the Conservatoire (becoming Jacques instead of Jacob) but, after a year of studies, he left to earn a living as an orchestral cellist, ultimately in the orchestra of the Opéra-Comique.

He progressed from orchestral playing to solo work and, in the 1840s, gave concert performances in several of the world’s musical capitals.

Offenbach began writing music almost at the same time that he began performing it, at first producing occasional pieces, orchestral dances and instrumental and vocal music before, in 1839, he was given the opportunity to compose for the stage for the first time with a song for the one