"

 vague point 
would it help to rephrase the first sentence thus?

Biography

Offenbach's father, Isaac Juda Eberst, born 26 October 1779 in Offenbach am Main, took the name Offenbach in 1808 when he was already in Deutz where he had moved in 1802.Yon, Jean-Claude. Jacques Offenbach. Editions Gallimard, Paris, 2000.

The alternative would appear to be a long explanation of the Napoleonic edict.

  
Thank you, that sounds good, although I would prefer a link to an explanatory article or some footnote, but maybe that's just me. One more thing: the italics around his father's name and the bolding of Offenbach ought to be dropped.    

 Play titles 
Confusingly, in 'other stage works', three of the play titles with a Wikipedia link are no longer spelled the same (case) as given in the articles about the plays...   
Can you clarify? There are no red links in that section. zach 
There aren't any red links because the three plays in question are piped links to their English titles. Cg2p0B0u8m's observation that the French titles in these articles uses different capitalisation is correct. We know that the most widely used style of French title capitalisation, which is a bit idosyncratic and not cosnsistently applied in French writing, is not used in the opera or classical music projects on Wikipedia where a strict but easily understood system is used. Other projects are not so strict; that's why those articles on the plays use a different spelling.    
Ah. Missed that. Shouldn't we be using the English titles? After all The Tales of Hoffmann appears just below. zach 
Wouldn't that make for an awkward list as we don't have English titles for all these plays?    
Perhaps, but then what is the least bad solution? My primary editing instinct tells me that consistency should come first — at least within the article. zach 
But at the cost of consistency within the paragraph. — (shrug) Whatever, no biggie. The list itself is a useful improvement to the article, in whichever language the titles are listed.    

Yes, it's not a major thing. From Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(France_%26_French-related)#Works_of_art it seemed that only classical music and opera had opted out of l’Académie française / into 'Grove'; no problem.    
Also visual arts, but as we have often remarked, this is a classic 'no-win' situation. zach "