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Orpheus in Paris: Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of His Time
Siegfried Kracauer's Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of His Time brilliantly reconfigures the biography form into a remarkable work of social and cultural history. In a book that has frequently been compared with Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project, Kracauer uses the life and work of Offenbach to assemble a penetrating portrayal of Second Empire Paris.
By examining the superficiality and mystification of collective experience, Kracauer provides the reader with a revelatory "physiognomy" of social reality itself. Offenbach's immensely popular operettas have long been seen as part of the larger historical amnesia and escapism in the aftermath of 1848. But Kracauer insists that Offenbach's productions have to be understood as more than simply glittering distractions.
The fantasy realms of his operettas, occurring amid the urban renewal of Baron Haussmann and the fanfare of Universal Expositions, were on the one hand fully continuous with the unreality of Napoleon III's imperial masquerade, but on the other made a mockery of the pomp and pretenses surrounding the apparatuses of power. His music "originated in an epoch in which social reality had been banished by the Emperor's orders, and for many years it flourished in the gap that was left."
Offenbach's dreamworlds were embedded with a layer of utopian content that can be seen as an indictment of the fraudulence and corruption of the times. This book will be essential reading for anyone interested in modern critical and cultural studies. This edition includes Kracauer's preface to the original German edition, translated into English for the first time, and a critical foreword by Gertrud Koch.
By examining the superficiality and mystification of collective experience, Kracauer provides the reader with a revelatory "physiognomy" of social reality itself. Offenbach's immensely popular operettas have long been seen as part of the larger historical amnesia and escapism in the aftermath of 1848. But Kracauer insists that Offenbach's productions have to be understood as more than simply glittering distractions.
The fantasy realms of his operettas, occurring amid the urban renewal of Baron Haussmann and the fanfare of Universal Expositions, were on the one hand fully continuous with the unreality of Napoleon III's imperial masquerade, but on the other made a mockery of the pomp and pretenses surrounding the apparatuses of power. His music "originated in an epoch in which social reality had been banished by the Emperor's orders, and for many years it flourished in the gap that was left."
Offenbach's dreamworlds were embedded with a layer of utopian content that can be seen as an indictment of the fraudulence and corruption of the times. This book will be essential reading for anyone interested in modern critical and cultural studies. This edition includes Kracauer's preface to the original German edition, translated into English for the first time, and a critical foreword by Gertrud Koch.
460 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1937
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About the author
Siegfried Kracauer
97 books77 followersBorn to a Jewish family in Frankfurt am Main, Kracauer studied architecture from 1907 to 1913, eventually obtaining a doctorate in engineering in 1914 and working as an architect in Osnabrück, Munich, and Berlin until 1920.
Near the end of the First World War, he befriended the young Theodor W. Adorno, to whom he became an early philosophical mentor.
From 1922 to 1933 he worked as the leading film and literature editor of the Frankfurter Zeitung (a leading Frankfurt newspaper) as its correspondent in Berlin, where he worked alongside Walter Benjamin and Ernst Bloch, among others. Between 1923 and 1925, he wrote an essay entitled Der Detektiv-Roman (The Detective Novel), in which he concerned himself with phenomena from everyday life in modern society.
Kracauer continued this trend over the next few years, building up theoretical methods of analyzing circuses, photography, films, advertising, tourism, city layout, and dance, which he published in 1927 with the work Ornament der Masse (published in English as The Mass Ornament).
In 1930, Kracauer published Die Angestellten (The Salaried Masses), a critical look at the lifestyle and culture of the new class of white-collar employees. Spiritually homeless, and divorced from custom and tradition, these employees sought refuge in the new "distraction industries" of entertainment. Observers note that many of these lower-middle class employees were quick to adopt Nazism, three years later.
Kracauer became increasingly critical of capitalism (having read the works of Karl Marx) and eventually broke away from the Frankfurter Zeitung. About this same time (1930), he married Lili Ehrenreich. He was also very critical of Stalinism and the "terrorist totalitarianism" of the Soviet government.
With the rise of the Nazis in Germany in 1933, Kracauer migrated to Paris, and then in 1941 emigrated to the United States.
From 1941 to 1943 he worked in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, supported by Guggenheim and Rockefeller scholarships for his work in German film. Eventually, he published From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film (1947), which traces the birth of Nazism from the cinema of the Weimar Republic as well as helping lay the foundation of modern film criticism.
In 1960, he released Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality, which argued that realism is the most important function of cinema.
In the last years of his life Kracauer worked as a sociologist for different institutes, amongst them in New York as a director of research for applied social sciences at Columbia University. He died there, in 1966, from the consequences of pneumonia.
His last book is the posthumously published History, the Last Things Before the Last.
Near the end of the First World War, he befriended the young Theodor W. Adorno, to whom he became an early philosophical mentor.
From 1922 to 1933 he worked as the leading film and literature editor of the Frankfurter Zeitung (a leading Frankfurt newspaper) as its correspondent in Berlin, where he worked alongside Walter Benjamin and Ernst Bloch, among others. Between 1923 and 1925, he wrote an essay entitled Der Detektiv-Roman (The Detective Novel), in which he concerned himself with phenomena from everyday life in modern society.
Kracauer continued this trend over the next few years, building up theoretical methods of analyzing circuses, photography, films, advertising, tourism, city layout, and dance, which he published in 1927 with the work Ornament der Masse (published in English as The Mass Ornament).
In 1930, Kracauer published Die Angestellten (The Salaried Masses), a critical look at the lifestyle and culture of the new class of white-collar employees. Spiritually homeless, and divorced from custom and tradition, these employees sought refuge in the new "distraction industries" of entertainment. Observers note that many of these lower-middle class employees were quick to adopt Nazism, three years later.
Kracauer became increasingly critical of capitalism (having read the works of Karl Marx) and eventually broke away from the Frankfurter Zeitung. About this same time (1930), he married Lili Ehrenreich. He was also very critical of Stalinism and the "terrorist totalitarianism" of the Soviet government.
With the rise of the Nazis in Germany in 1933, Kracauer migrated to Paris, and then in 1941 emigrated to the United States.
From 1941 to 1943 he worked in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, supported by Guggenheim and Rockefeller scholarships for his work in German film. Eventually, he published From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film (1947), which traces the birth of Nazism from the cinema of the Weimar Republic as well as helping lay the foundation of modern film criticism.
In 1960, he released Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality, which argued that realism is the most important function of cinema.
In the last years of his life Kracauer worked as a sociologist for different institutes, amongst them in New York as a director of research for applied social sciences at Columbia University. He died there, in 1966, from the consequences of pneumonia.
His last book is the posthumously published History, the Last Things Before the Last.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 19, 2015
Un paseo por la historia de París durante casi todo el siglo XIX de la mano de uno de los artistas de éxito de una sociedad del espectáculo en ciernes. un archivo de anécdotas y de datos de personajes relajantes pero también de escritores de segunda hoy olvidados, de teatros y calles poco frecuentados. Un goce para el lector flâneur que quiera completar los libros de Benjamin sobre la época.
November 2, 2021
Un fantastique essai où Kracauer trace l'émergence de la figure de Jacques Offenbach comme le fruit de l'émergence et de la fin du Second Empire en liant les événements politiques de la France avec les répercussions sur la vie et l'entourage du compositeur.
On unie à la fois un portrait historique de la politique française, l'émergence de nouveaux théâtres, de l'opérette, des hauts et des bas de la bourgeoisie, de l'empereur et des impacts matériels, artistiques, etc. sur la vie des Français (et surtout des Parisiens). On parle de l'émergence d'une presse à petit frais contre un coût d'annonces plus élevés qui permet une plus grande diffusion des journaux, et l'impact (ou non) de la critique sur la réception des opérettes, des querelles culturelles et politiques entre l'Allemagne et la France (et entre Wagner et Offenbach), de questions d'immigration, de public, de dettes et de vedettes, en même temps qu'on suit la vie de Jacques Offenbach, d'un jeune prodige qui peine à obtenir rémunération à la "superstar" qu'il deviendra et qui marquera l'histoire de la France (les dernières pages arrivent à bien démontrer cet impact du compositeur).
Je dois avouer que la lecture était très agréable, on n'avait pas l'impression de lire un livre d'histoire ou une biographie, mais presqu'un récit (par moment, on aurait dit Les Misérables : Tome I avec ces allers-retours entre l'histoire plus large, les considérations sociales, puis le retour à la narration autour d'Offenbach). Certains moments semblent être tirés d'un roman tellement ils sont incroyables (notamment lorsqu'Offenbach retrouve un compositeur déchu d'une mélodie qui l'a accompagné toute sa vie).
Kracauer se défend de faire dans le biographique ou l'analyse littéraire et musicale, mais on a tout de même droit à une mise en contexte de l'hypertexte et la réception des opérettes d'Offenbach, dans quel contexte elles émergent, à quoi elles font référence (pas toujours), à leur fonction, mais surtout à leur accueil par le public, les journaux, les personnes influentes et l'héritage que ces pièces auront dans les années à suivre. L'essayiste s'attarde aussi beaucoup aux conditions matérielles des théâtres et du compositeur, qui informe la production des pièces et leur re-travail ou retard parfois et des conséquences que celle-ci auront sur les productions suivantes.
J'ai toujours beaucoup aimé la musique d'Offenbach et j'ai eu un véritable plaisir à découvrir un peu plus ce monde musical, à mettre en contexte cette production et me donne vraiment envie de voir toutes celles que je n'ai pas encore écoutée et c'est toujours un plaisir de finir un livre et d'avoir envie d'en lire/écouter davantage pas par manque de détails dans l'essai, mais pour approfondir l'appréciation de l'oeuvre d'Offenbach.
On unie à la fois un portrait historique de la politique française, l'émergence de nouveaux théâtres, de l'opérette, des hauts et des bas de la bourgeoisie, de l'empereur et des impacts matériels, artistiques, etc. sur la vie des Français (et surtout des Parisiens). On parle de l'émergence d'une presse à petit frais contre un coût d'annonces plus élevés qui permet une plus grande diffusion des journaux, et l'impact (ou non) de la critique sur la réception des opérettes, des querelles culturelles et politiques entre l'Allemagne et la France (et entre Wagner et Offenbach), de questions d'immigration, de public, de dettes et de vedettes, en même temps qu'on suit la vie de Jacques Offenbach, d'un jeune prodige qui peine à obtenir rémunération à la "superstar" qu'il deviendra et qui marquera l'histoire de la France (les dernières pages arrivent à bien démontrer cet impact du compositeur).
Je dois avouer que la lecture était très agréable, on n'avait pas l'impression de lire un livre d'histoire ou une biographie, mais presqu'un récit (par moment, on aurait dit Les Misérables : Tome I avec ces allers-retours entre l'histoire plus large, les considérations sociales, puis le retour à la narration autour d'Offenbach). Certains moments semblent être tirés d'un roman tellement ils sont incroyables (notamment lorsqu'Offenbach retrouve un compositeur déchu d'une mélodie qui l'a accompagné toute sa vie).
Kracauer se défend de faire dans le biographique ou l'analyse littéraire et musicale, mais on a tout de même droit à une mise en contexte de l'hypertexte et la réception des opérettes d'Offenbach, dans quel contexte elles émergent, à quoi elles font référence (pas toujours), à leur fonction, mais surtout à leur accueil par le public, les journaux, les personnes influentes et l'héritage que ces pièces auront dans les années à suivre. L'essayiste s'attarde aussi beaucoup aux conditions matérielles des théâtres et du compositeur, qui informe la production des pièces et leur re-travail ou retard parfois et des conséquences que celle-ci auront sur les productions suivantes.
J'ai toujours beaucoup aimé la musique d'Offenbach et j'ai eu un véritable plaisir à découvrir un peu plus ce monde musical, à mettre en contexte cette production et me donne vraiment envie de voir toutes celles que je n'ai pas encore écoutée et c'est toujours un plaisir de finir un livre et d'avoir envie d'en lire/écouter davantage pas par manque de détails dans l'essai, mais pour approfondir l'appréciation de l'oeuvre d'Offenbach.
Want to read
August 2, 2019La meilleure publication sur le contexte historique de la vie d’Offenbach, traduite de l'allemand en 1937.
January 28, 2021
Very sentimental writing, typical of the period in which it was written.
September 3, 2022
A book of incredible biographical span, illuminating much of society as it was. Interesting to read now at such distance.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews