Jacques Offenbach (1819–1880)
A cellist and composer, king of Parisian operetta under the Second Empire, author of Orpheus in the Underworld and The Tales of Hoffmann.
Born in Cologne in 1819, the son of a synagogue cantor, Jacob Offenbach was sent to Paris at fourteen to study the cello. He became a renowned virtuoso, then conductor of the Comédie-Française orchestra.
In 1855 he opened his own theatre, the Bouffes-Parisiens, and invented modern operetta: Orpheus in the Underworld (1858), La Belle Hélène (1864) and La Vie parisienne (1866) cheerfully mock the gods, the heroes and the society of his time.
He wrote around a hundred stage works. He died in Paris in 1880 without finishing his only grand opera, The Tales of Hoffmann, premiered the following year, with its famous Barcarolle.