Offenbach
Joanna Richardson describes how after he had moved to Paris, Jacques Offenbach, the son of a cantor at the synagogue in Cologne, created an operatic epitome of the Second Empire.
A century and a half ago, on June 20th, 1819, a son was born to the wife of Isaac Juda Eberst, a cantor at the synagogue in Cologne. Eberst was a native of the town of Offenbach-am-Main, and he was generally known as Der Offenbacher, the man from Offenbach. His son was to make the name his own, and to make it celebrated ever after.
Even when he was a child, Jacques Offenbach showed exceptional skill on the cello; but there was already strong anti-semitism in what would one day be Germany, and Eberst felt that only in Paris would his son be given his chance. In 1833, when the boy was fourteen, he boldly took him to Paris. Cherubini, the director of the Conservatoire, recognized him as a prodigy, and accepted him as a pupil.
Young Offenbach spent only a year at the Conservatoire, before he embarked on his career; he was bitterly poor, but he believed in his abilities, and he showed an indomitable love of work. He established himself as a virtuoso on the cello, and played in various theatre orchestras—an experience he found intensely frustrating.
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