Jacques Offenbach

Born in Cologne in 1819 as Jakob Offenbach, he moved to Paris as a teenager and built a career first as a gifted cellist, then as a composer and theater man. Paris became the center of his life and work, and he eventually took French citizenship.

Offenbach became famous for lively, witty stage works that poked fun at myth, manners, and public life. His operettas, including Orpheus in the Underworld, La belle Hélène, La Vie parisienne, and La Périchole, were huge successes and helped define operetta as a genre.

Although he was celebrated for comedy, he also aimed at something more romantic and dramatic in The Tales of Hoffmann. He died in Paris in 1880 before finishing it, but the opera went on to become one of his most enduring works.