“Offenbach was – no matter how loud it sounds – one of the most gifted composers of the XIX century,” wrote I. Sollertinsky. Only worked in a completely different genre than Schumann or Mendelssohn, Wagner or Brahms. He was a brilliant musical feuilletonist, satirist-buff, improviser. He created 6 operas, a number of romances and vocal ensembles, but the main genre of his work is operetta (about 100). Among the operettas of Offenbach in their importance are "Orpheus in Hell", "Beautiful Helena",
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“Offenbach was – no matter how loud it sounds – one of the most gifted composers of the XIX century,” wrote I. Sollertinsky. Only worked in a completely different genre than Schumann or Mendelssohn, Wagner or Brahms. He was a brilliant musical feuilletonist, satirist-buff, improviser. He created 6 operas, a number of romances and vocal ensembles, but the main genre of his work is operetta (about 100). Among the operettas of Offenbach in their importance are "Orpheus in Hell", "Beautiful Helena", "Paris Life", "Duchess of Herolstein", "Pericola" and others. Having become in France the ancestor of the genre, seemingly intended mainly for entertainment, Offenbach introduces social sharpness into the operetta, often turning it into a parody of the life of the Second Empire, denouncing the cynicism and debauchery of society, "danced feverishly on the volcano", at the time of irresistibly rapid movement to the Sedan catastrophe. " Thanks to the universal satirical scope, the breadth of grotesque-incriminating generalizations, - said I. Sollertinsky, - Offenbach leaves the ranks of operetical composers - Hervé, Lecoc, Johann Strauss, Legar - and approaches the phalanx of great satirists - Aristophanes, Rabelais, Swift, Voltaire, Domier, etc. The music of Offenbach, inexhaustible in melodic generosity and rhythmic ingenuity, marked by great individual originality, relies primarily on French urban folklore, the practice of Parisian chansonnier, dances popular at the time, especially gallop and quadrille. It absorbed beautiful artistic traditions: the wit and brilliance of J. Rossini, the fire temperament of K. M. Weber, the lyricism of A. Boualdier and F. Herold, the piquant rhythms of F. Auber. The composer directly developed the achievements of his compatriot and contemporary - one of the creators of the French classical operetta F. Herve. But most of all in ease and grace Offenbach echoes W. A. Mozart, not without reason he was called "Mozart of the Champs-Elysees". J. Offenbach was born in the family of a synagogue cantor. Possessing exceptional musical abilities, by the age of 7, with the help of his father, he mastered the violin, by 10 he independently learned to play the cello, and by 12 he began to perform in concerts as a cellist-virtuoso and composer. In 1833, having moved to Paris - the city that became his second homeland, where he lived almost all his life - the young musician entered the conservatory in the class of F. Galevi. In the first years after graduating from the Conservatory, he worked as a cellist in the Opera Comique orchestra, performed in entertainment establishments and salons, wrote theater and pop music. He also toured for a long time in London (1844) and Cologne (1840 and 1843), where F. Liszt accompanied him in one of the concerts in recognition of his talent. From 1850 to 1855, Offenbach worked as a staff composer and conductor at Theatre Francais, composing music to the tragedies of P. Cornel and J. Racine. In 1855 Offenbach opened his own theater Bouffes Parisiens, where he works not only as a composer, but also as an entrepreneur, director, conductor, co-author of librettists. Like his contemporaries, famous French cartoonists O. Daumier and P. Gavarni, comediographer E. Labish, Offenbach saturates his performances with subtle and sarcastic wit, and sometimes sarcasm. The composer attracts librettist writers A. Meljak and L. Galevi, the true co-authors of his performances. And a small, modest theater on the Champs-Elysees is gradually becoming a favorite gathering place for the Parisian public. The first great success was won by the operetta Orpheus in Hell, staged in 1858 and withstood 288 performances in a row. This whirlwind parody of academic antiquity, in which the gods descend from Olympus and dance a rabid cancan, contained a clear hint of the structure of modern society and modern mores. Further musical and stage works - whatever the plot they are written on (antiquity and images of popular fairy tales, the Middle Ages and Peruvian exoticism, the events of French history of the XVIII century and the life of contemporaries) - invariably reflect modern mores in a parody, comic or lyrical manner. Following Orpheus are Genevieve of Brabant (1859), The Song of Fortunio (1861), The Beautiful Helena (1864), Bluebeard (1866), Paris Life (1866), The Duchess of Herolstein (1867), Pericola (1868), The Robbers (1869). Offenbach’s fame extends beyond France. His operettas are performed abroad, especially in Vienna and St. Petersburg. In 1861, he was removed from the management of the theater to be able to constantly go on tour. The zenith of his fame is the Paris World Exhibition of 1867, where the "Paris Life" is performed, which gathered in the stalls of the Bouffes Parisiens theater the kings of Portugal, Sweden, Norway, the Viceroy of Egypt, the Prince of Wales and the Russian Tsar Alexander II. The Franco-Prussian War interrupts Offenbach’s brilliant career. His operettas are coming off the stage. In 1875 he was forced to declare bankruptcy. In 1876, in order to financially support his family, he went on tour in the United States, where he conducted garden concerts. In the year of the Second World Exhibition (1878), Offenbach was almost forgotten. The success of his two late operettas Madame Favard (1878) and Daughter of Tambourg Major (1879) somewhat brightens the situation, but Offenbach’s fame is finally eclipsed by the operettas of the young French composer C. Lecock. Affected by heart disease, Offenbach is working on a work he considers his life’s work, the lyrical-comic opera Hoffmann’s Tales. It reflects the romantic theme of the inaccessibility of the ideal, the spectre of earthly existence. But the composer did not live to see its premiere, it was completed and staged by E. Giro in 1881.