What is Jacques Offenbach?
{{for|other meanings|Offenbach (disambiguation)}} [[File:Jacques Offenbach by Nadar.jpg|thumb|Jacques Offenbach]] '''Jacques Offenbach''' (20 June 1819, in [[Cologne]] – 5 October 1880, in [[Paris]]) was a [[France|French]] [[composer]] and [[cello|cellist]] of the [[Romantic music|Romantic]] era. He is seen as one of the originators of the [[operetta]] form. He was of German-Jewish descent. He was one of the most influential composers of popular music in Europe in the 19th century. Many of his works are still played today. Offenbach's many [[operetta]]s, such as ''[[Orpheus in the Underworld]]'', and ''[[La belle Hélène]]'', were extremely popular both in France and elsewhere in the 1850s and 1860s. They combined political and cultural [[satire]] with witty [[grand opera]] [[parody|parodies]]. His popularity in France declined in the 1870s after the fall of the [[Second Empire]]. He fled [[France]], but during the last years of his life, his popularity came back. Several of his operettas are still performed. While his name remains most closely associated with the French [[operetta]] and the [[French Second Empire|Second Empire]], it is Offenbach's one fully [[opera]]tic masterpiece, ''[[Les contes d'Hoffmann]]'' (''The Tales of Hoffmann''), composed at the end of his career, that has become the most familiar of Offenbach's works in major [[opera house]]s. {{bio-stub}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Offenbach, Jacques}} [[Category:1819 births]] [[Category:1880 deaths]] [[Category:19th-century French composers]] [[Category:Cellists]]