Offenbach, Tales of Hoffmann - Barcarolle

 
In the archives of the Paris Conservatory of 1834, opposite the name of Jacques Offenbach, we read: "Deleted from the registers on December 2, 1834, at his own request".

The year before, the fourteen-year-old cellist Jakob, together with his eighteen-year-old violinist brother Julius, had gained admission to the Conservatoire after their director, Luigi Cherubini – who several years earlier had rejected Franz Liszt because he was twelve years old and Hungarian – had celebrated their abilities and turned a blind eye to their age and German origin. In return, Julius was renamed Jules, and from then on Jakob was called Jacques.

The young Jacques Offenbach, a cellist
Jules graduated and became an accomplished violin teacher and conductor. Jacques became bored within a year, as noted above. But he felt free, to compose, although one unsophisticated biographer notes that "he also felt free to starve". Fortunately, the situation never reached such extremes. Between 1835 and 1855 Jacques Offenbach made his living as a cellist, even achieving some international fame, also as a conductor.

Jacques Offenbach (1819 - 1880)

The Tales of Hoffmann

But his focus was the composition of operettas, and in 1855 he opened his own theater to stage the works that poured out of his mind. Offenbach wrote nearly one hundred operettas in his lifetime. The last one, with which he intended to cross the boundary between operetta and opera, kept him busy for two years but he never saw it performed. The three-act opera The Tales of Hoffmann premiered on February 10, 1881, at the Opéra-Comique in Paris. Offenbach had died in October of the previous year.

The Barcarolle

The work continues to be a standard in the world operatic repertoire, even in the 21st century, but the aria that managed to go beyond the traditional stages is by far the Barcarolle, for soprano and mezzo, which is performed in Act III.

The piece has made inroads in the movies: Titanic and Life is Beautiful does incorporate it in their soundtracks. But the pioneer was Elvis Presley, who used the melody to sing Tonight is so right for love in the 1960 film, G.I. Blues.

The rendition is by Russian soprano Anna Netrebko and Latvian mezzo Elina Garança, accompanied by orchestra and choirs.