Jacques Offenbach

French composer, best known for his operetta works, was born in Cologne in 1819. His father, a cantor and music teacher, decided to ensure his son's musical education and enrolled him in cello lessons at the Paris Conservatory. There, young Offenbach studied for a year before joining the Paris Opéra Comique as a cellist.
His first work for the theater was 'Pascal et Chambord'. However, this piece did not bring fame to the composer. It was with the composition of the operetta 'Pepito' that his career as a composer of operettas began. In 1855, he opened his own operetta theater Les Bouffes Parisiens, where his works were performed (including 'Madame Papillon', 'Ba-ta-clan', 'Tromb-al-Cazar', and 'Le mariage aux lanternes'). Three years later, the premiere of 'Orpheus in the Underworld', a rhythmic operetta with an interesting melody, took place on the stage of his theater, which garnered great interest as it depicted a realistic image of French Second Empire society.
From 1872-75, he was the director of the Gaité theater, which closed due to bankruptcy. The following year, he visited the United States.
His greatest work was an opera based on the fantastical stories of E.T.A. Hoffmann titled 'The Tales of Hoffmann'. The composer passed away in Paris in 1880 and did not live to see the premiere of this work, which took place a year after his death at the Opéra Comique.
In his works, Offenbach parodied politics and the weaknesses of the French Second Empire, thus cementing his place in history as a satirist forever associated with the comedic theater of Paris.