OFFENBACH, JACQUES (1819-188o), French com poser of opera bouffe, was born at Cologne, of German Jewish parents, on June 21, 1819. In 1833 he was sent to Paris to study the violoncello at the conservatoire. As a member of the orchestra of the Opera Comique, he turned his opportunities to good ac count and eventually was made conductor at the Theatre Francais. His first complete work, Pepito (Opera Comique, 1853), was fol lowed by a crowd of light dramatic pieces of a light character, which effected a complete revolution in the popular taste of the period. Offenbach obtained a lease of the Theatre Comte in the Passage Choiseul, reopened it in 1855 under the title of the Bouffes Parisiens, and produced a succession of brilliant, hu morous trifles. Ludovic Halevy, the librettist, was associated with him from the first, but still more after 186o, when Halevy ob tained Henri Meilhac's collaboration (see HALivY). Beginning with Les Deux Aveugles and Le Violoneux, the series culminated in 1867 with La Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein, perhaps the most popular opera bouffe that ever was written, not excepting even his Orphee aux enfers, produced in 1858. In 1866 his own con
nection with the Bouffes Parisiens ceased, and he wrote for var ious theatres. In twenty-five years Offenbach produced no less than sixty-nine complete dramatic works, some of which were in three or even in four acts. Among the latest of these were Le Docteur Ox, founded on a story by Jules Verne, and La Bate au laic, both produced in 1877, and Madame Favart (1879). Offen bach died at Paris on Oct. 5, 1880. Les Contes d'Hoffmann, post humously published, was revised by Leo Delibes, and has proved, as he himself prophesied, the most popular of all his works.
See P. Bekker, Jacques Offenbach (1m) ; E. Rieger, Offenbach and Seine Wiener Schule (192o) ; L. Schneider, Offenbach (Paris, 1923).