Offenbach created a type of light burlesque French comic opera known as the opérette, which became one of the most characteristic artistic products of the period. He was the son of a cantor at the Cologne Synagogue, Isaac Juda Eberst, who had been born at Offenbach-am-Main. The father was known as “Der Offenbacher,” and his so wasknown only by his assumed name, Offenbach. Attracted by the more tolerant attitude in Paris to the Jews, Offenbach's father took him there in his youth, and in 1833 he was enrolled as a cello student at the Paris Conservatoire. In 1844, having been converted to Catholicism, he married Herminie d'Alcain, the daughter of a Spanish Carlist.

Offenbach is credited with writing in a fluent, elegant style and with a highly developed sense of both characterisation and satire (particularly in his irreverent treatment of mythological subjects); he was called by Rossini “our little Mozart of the Champs-Elysées.” Indeed, he was almost as prolific as Mozart. He wrote more than 100 stage works, many of which, transcending topical associations, were maintained in the repertory of the 20th century.