title: 1999 London nail bombings

text: Copeland's mental state was assessed at Broadmoor Hospital. He was diagnosed by five psychiatrists as having paranoid schizophrenia, while one diagnosed a personality disorder not serious enough to avoid a charge of murder. There was no dispute that he was mentally ill, but the extent of this, and whether he was unable to take responsibility for his actions, became a matter of contention. At the Old Bailey, Copeland's plea of guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility was not accepted by the prosecution or jury.


title: 1999 London nail bombings

text: On 30 June 2000, Copeland was convicted of three counts of murder and planting bombs and given six life sentences. The trial judge doubted that it would ever be safe to release Copeland.


title: 1999 London nail bombings

text: On 2 March 2007, the High Court decided that Copeland should remain in prison for at least fifty years, ruling out his release until 2049 at the earliest, when he would be 73. Copeland appealed; on 28 June 2011, the Court of Appeal upheld the ruling.


title: 1999 London nail bombings

text: In June 2014, Copeland attacked a fellow inmate at HM Prison Belmarsh with a shiv, an improvised weapon made from razor blades attached to a toothbrush handle. In October 2015, he pleaded guilty to wounding with intent and was sentenced to a further three years in prison, of which he will serve eighteen months.


title: Verona Arena

text: The Verona Arena ( ) is a Roman amphitheatre in Piazza Bra in Verona, Italy built in 30 AD. It is still in use today and is internationally famous for the large-scale opera performances given there.


title: Verona Arena

text: It is one of the best preserved ancient structures of its kind. In ancient times, the arena's capacity was nearly 30,000 people. The stage for concerts and opera performances decreases the available places to a maximum of 22,000.


title: Verona Arena

text: It will be used as the Closing ceremony venue for the 2026 Winter Olympics and two weeks later will be used for the Opening Ceremony for the 2026 Winter Paralympics in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo.


title: Verona Arena

text: The building itself was built in AD 30 on a site which was then beyond the city walls. The "ludi" (shows and games) staged there were so famous that spectators came from many other places, often far away, to witness them. The amphitheatre could host more than 30,000 spectators in ancient times.


title: Verona Arena

text: The round facade of the building was originally composed of white and pink limestone from Valpolicella, but after a major earthquake in 1117, which almost completely destroyed the structure's outer ring, except for the so-called "ala" (wing), the stone was quarried for re-use in other buildings. Nevertheless, it impressed medieval visitors to the city, one of whom considered it to have been a labyrinth, without ingress or egress. Ciriaco d'Ancona was filled with admiration for the way it had been built and Giovanni Antonio Panteo's civic panegyric "De laudibus veronae", 1483, remarked that it struck the viewer as a construction that was more than human.


title: Verona Arena

text: The first interventions to recover the arena's function as an opera venue began during the Renaissance. Some operatic performances were later mounted in the building during the 1850s, owing to its outstanding acoustics.


title: Verona Arena

text: In 1913, operatic performances in the arena commenced in earnest due to the zeal and initiative of the Italian opera tenor Giovanni Zenatello and the impresario Ottone Rovato. The first 20th-century operatic production at the arena, a staging of Giuseppe Verdi's "Aida", took place on 10 August of that year, to mark the birth of Verdi 100 years before in 1813. Musicians Puccini and Mascagni were in attendance. Since then, summer seasons of opera have been mounted continually at the arena, except in 1915–18 and 1940–45, when Europe was convulsed in war.


title: Verona Arena

text: In modern times, at least four productions (sometimes up to six) are mounted each year between June and August. During the winter months, the local opera and ballet companies perform at the Teatro Filarmonico.


title: Verona Arena

text: Modern-day travellers are advised that admission tickets to sit on the arena's stone steps are much cheaper to buy than tickets giving access to the padded chairs available on lower levels. Candles are distributed to the audience and lit after sunset around the arena.


title: Verona Arena

text: Every year over 500,000 people see productions of the popular operas in this arena. Once capable of housing 20,000 patrons per performance (now limited to 15,000 because of safety reasons), the arena has featured many of world's most notable opera singers. In the post-World War II era, they have included Giuseppe Di Stefano, Maria Callas, Tito Gobbi and Renata Tebaldi among other names. A number of conductors have appeared there, too. The official arena shop has historical recordings made by some of them available for sale.


title: Verona Arena

text: The opera productions in the Verona Arena had not used any microphones or loudspeakers until a sound reinforcement system was installed in 2011.


title: Verona Arena

text: Arena di Verona Festival is a summer festival of opera, inaugurated in 1913 with Giuseppe Verdi's "Aida", to celebrate the centenary of the artist's birth.


title: Verona Arena

text: In recent times, the arena has also hosted several concerts of international rock and pop bands, among which Zucchero Fornaciari, who holds the record of the highest number of concerts in the location, 38 from 1989 to 2017, and the highest number of concerts during the same tour, 22 of the "Black Cat World Tour", Roger Waters, Bruce Springsteen, Elisa, Eros Ramazzotti, Laura Pausini, Pink Floyd, Alicia Keys, One Direction, Simple Minds (whose concert film "Verona" was filmed at the venue during their "Street Fighting Years" Tour on 15 September 1989) Duran Duran, Deep Purple, The Who, Dire Straits, Mike Oldfield, Rod Stewart, Michael Flatley, Yanni, Sting, Pearl Jam, Radiohead, Peter Gabriel, Björk, Muse, Leonard Cohen, Paul McCartney, Jamiroquai, Whitney Houston, Mumford & Sons, Kiss, Spandau Ballet, 5 Seconds Of Summer, Måneskin, 2Cellos and Evanescence.


title: Verona Arena

text: In 1981, 1984, 2010, 2019 and 2022 it hosted the podium and presentation of the Giro d'Italia with thousands packing the arena to watch the prizes being handed out.


title: Mel Tillis

text: Lonnie Melvin Tillis (August 8, 1932 – November 19, 2017) was an American country music singer and songwriter. Although he recorded songs since the late 1950s, his biggest success occurred in the 1970s as part of the outlaw country movement, with a long list of Top 10 hits.


title: Mel Tillis

text: Tillis' biggest hits include "I Ain't Never", "Good Woman Blues", and "Coca-Cola Cowboy". On February 13, 2012, President Barack Obama awarded Tillis the National Medal of Arts for his contributions to country music. He also won the Country Music Association Awards' most coveted award, Entertainer of the Year. Tillis was a member of the Grand Ole Opry, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and Country Music Hall of Fame. Additionally, he was known for his stutter, which did not affect his singing voice. His daughter is 1990s country hitmaker Pam Tillis.


title: Mel Tillis

text: Mel Tillis was born in Tampa, Florida, US. His parents were Burma (née Rogers; 1907–1990) and Lonnie Lee Tillis (1907–1981). While he was still young, the family moved to Pahokee, Florida (near West Palm Beach). After a bout of malaria during his childhood, he developed a stutter. As a child, Tillis learned the drums as well as guitar. At age 16, won a local talent show.


title: Mel Tillis

text: He attended the University of Florida, but he dropped out and joined the United States Air Force. While stationed as a baker on Okinawa, he formed a band called The Westerners, which played at local nightclubs.


title: Mel Tillis

text: After leaving the Air Force in 1955, Tillis returned to Florida where he worked a number of odd jobs, eventually finding employment with the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad in Tampa. He used his railroad pass to visit Nashville and eventually met and auditioned for Wesley Rose of the publishing house Acuff-Rose Music. Rose encouraged Tillis to return to Florida and continue honing his songwriting skills. Tillis eventually moved to Tennessee, and began writing songs full-time. He wrote "I'm Tired", a No. 3 country hit for Webb Pierce in 1957. Other Tillis hits include "Honky Tong Song" and "Tupelo County Jail". Ray Price, Kitty Wells and Brenda Lee also charted hits with Tillis' material around this time. In the late 1950s, after becoming a hit-making songwriter, he signed his own contract with Columbia Records. In 1958, he had his first Top 40 hit, "The Violet and a Rose", followed by the Top 25 hit "Sawmill".


title: Mel Tillis

text: Although Tillis charted his own hits on "Billboard"s Hot Country Songs list, he had more success as a songwriter, particularly for Webb Pierce. He wrote the hits "I Ain't Never" (Tillis' own future hit) and "Crazy, Wild Desire". Bobby Bare, Tom Jones ("Detroit City"), Wanda Jackson, and Stonewall Jackson also covered his songs. (Some well-known songs from his Columbia years include "The Brooklyn Bridge", "Loco Weed", and "Walk on, Boy".) In 1967 Jack Greene had a No. 1 hit with a song Tillis co-wrote, "All the Time." Tillis continued to record on his own, but did not achieve major success on the country charts at first.


title: Mel Tillis

text: In the mid-1960s, Tillis switched to Kapp Records, and in 1965, he had his first Top 15 hit with "Wine". Other hits continued to follow, such as "Stateside" and "Life Turned Her That Way", which was later covered by Ricky Van Shelton in 1988, going to No. 1. He wrote for Charley Pride ("The Snakes Crawl At Night") and wrote "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town", which was a hit for Kenny Rogers and The First Edition. He also wrote the hit "Mental Revenge" for outlaw country star Waylon Jennings. It has also been covered by the Hacienda Brothers, Linda Ronstadt, Gram Parsons, Barbara Mandrell, and Jamey Johnson. In 1968, Tillis achieved his first Top 10 hit with "Who's Julie". He also was a regular featured singer on "The Porter Wagoner Show".


title: Mel Tillis

text: Things turned around in 1969 for Tillis. He finally achieved the success he always wanted with two Top 10 country hits, "These Lonely Hands of Mine" and "She'll Be Hanging Around Somewhere". In 1970, he reached the Top 5 with "Heart Over Mind", which peaked at No. 3 on the Hot Country Songs list. After this, Tillis' career as a country singer went into full swing. Hits soon came quite easily, such as "Heaven Everyday" (1970), "Commercial Affection" (1970), "Arms of a Fool" (1970), "Take My Hand" (a duet with Sherry Bryce in 1971), and "Brand New Mister Me" (1971). In 1972, Tillis achieved his first chart-topper with his version of his song "I Ain't Never". Even though the song was previously a hit by Webb Pierce, Tillis' version is the better-known version of the two. Most of the above-mentioned song hits were recorded on MGM Records, Tillis' record company in the early part of the decade.


title: Mel Tillis

text: After the success of "I Ain't Never", Tillis had another hit, which came close to No. 1 (reaching No. 3), titled "Neon Rose", followed by "Sawmill", which reached No. 2. "Midnight, Me and the Blues" was another near chart-topper in 1974. Other hits Tillis had on MGM include "Stomp Them Grapes" (1974), "Memory Maker" (1974), "Woman in the Back of My Mind" (1975), and his version of "Mental Revenge" (1976). Tillis achieved his biggest success with MCA Records, with which he signed in 1976. It started with a pair of two No. 1 hits in 1976, "Good Woman Blues" and "Heart Healer". In an interview, he mentioned having written five hits in one week. Thanks to this success, in 1976 Tillis won the Country Music Association Awards' most coveted award, Entertainer of the Year, and was also inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame that year. In 1977 he appeared on the game show "Match Game". He achieved another No. 1 in 1978 with "I Believe In You" and then again in 1979 with "Coca-Cola Cowboy", which was put in the Clint Eastwood movie "Every Which Way but Loose", in which he also made a cameo appearance. Also in 1978, Tillis co-hosted a short-lived variety series on ABC television, "Mel and Susan Together", with model Susan Anton. Other hits around this time included "Send Me Down to Tucson", "Ain't No California", and "I Got the Hoss". In mid-1979, Tillis switched to another record company, Elektra Records.


title: Mel Tillis

text: After signing with Elektra, he continued to make hit songs such as "Blind In Love" and "Lying Time Again", both hits in 1979. Until 1981, Tillis remained on top of his game as one of country music's most successful vocalists of the era. "Your Body Is an Outlaw" went to No. 3 in 1980, followed by another Top 10 hit, "Steppin' Out". "Southern Rains" in 1981 was his last No. 1 hit. That same year, he released "Mel and Nancy", an album of duets with Nancy Sinatra, which spawned two hit singles, the Top 30 hit "Texas Cowboy Night" and the double A-side, "Play Me or Trade Me/Where Would I Be". He remained with Elektra until 1982 before switching back to MCA for a brief period in 1983. That summer, he scored a Top 10 hit with "In The Middle Of The Night" and had his last Top 10 hit with "New Patches" in 1984. By this time, however, Tillis had built up a financial empire, thanks to investing in music publishing companies such as Sawgrass and Cedarwood. He also appeared in movies, including "Cottonpickin' Chickenpickers" (1967), "W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings" (1975), "Smokey and the Bandit II" (1980), "The Cannonball Run" (1981), "The Cannonball Run II" (1984), "Beer for My Horses" (2008), and comedy westerns "The Villain" (1979) and "Uphill All the Way" (1986), in which he starred with fellow country singer Roy Clark. In 1979, he acquired radio station KIXZ (AM) in Amarillo, Texas, from Sammons-Ruff Associates, which converted from Top 40 to country music and became a force in the Texas Panhandle region (the station is now known today as a News/Talk radio station). A short time later, Tillis acquired Amarillo, Texas, Rock FM station KYTX, which changed calls to KMML (a play on Tillis' stutter) (that station is now known today as KXSS-FM, a Top 40 radio station and is currently still a sister station to KIXZ). Still later, he operated WMML in Mobile, Alabama. All of his stations were sold after a time for a healthy return. He briefly signed with RCA Records, as well as Mercury Records, and later Curb Records in 1991. By this time, his chart success had faded.


title: Mel Tillis

text: Following his heyday in the 1970s, Tillis remained a songwriter in the 1980s, writing hits for Ricky Skaggs and Randy Travis. He also wrote his autobiography called "Stutterin' Boy". Tillis appeared as the television commercial spokesman for the fast-food restaurant chain Whataburger during the 1980s. He continued to record and have occasional hits through the decade, with his last top-10 hit coming in 1984 and his last top-40 country hit in 1988; like most country artists of the classic era, his recording career was dented by changes in the country music industry in the early 1990s. He also built a theater in Branson, Missouri, where he performed on a regular basis until 2002. In 1998, he teamed with Bobby Bare, Waylon Jennings, and Jerry Reed to form The Old Dogs. The group recorded a double album of songs penned entirely by Shel Silverstein. In July 1998, "Old Dogs Volumes 1 and 2" were released on the Atlantic Records label. A companion video, as well as a "Greatest Hits" album (composed of previously released material by each individual artist), were also available.


title: Mel Tillis

text: The Grand Ole Opry inducted Tillis on June 9, 2007. He was inducted into the Opry by his daughter Pam. (In the 1990s, Pam became a very successful country music singer in her own right, with Top Ten hits like "Maybe It Was Memphis", "Shake the Sugar Tree" and the Number One "Mi Vida Loca (My Crazy Life)".) Along with being inducted into the Grand Ole Opry, it was announced on August 7 that year that Tillis, along with Ralph Emery and Vince Gill, were to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.


title: Mel Tillis

text: Tillis had six children, including singer-songwriter Pam Tillis. Pam recorded for Arista Nashville in the 1990s where she had multiple country hit singles such as "Mi Vida Loca (My Crazy Life)" and "Maybe It Was Memphis". His son Mel "Sonny" Tillis Jr. is also a songwriter. Sonny co-wrote Jamie O'Neal's 2001 hit single "When I Think About Angels".


title: Mel Tillis

text: Tillis suffered from several illnesses beginning in January 2016. On November 19, 2017, he died of respiratory failure in Ocala, Florida, at age 85. After this, Sonny Tillis began touring as a tribute act to his father.


title: Mel Tillis

text: The Statesiders were Mel's longtime backing band. They were named after his 1966 hit single "Stateside." Between 1969 and 1980 14 studio albums and 4 live albums were released credited to Mel Tillis and the Statesiders, and the Statesiders released one studio album on their own in 1975. Several notable musicians have served as Statesiders, such as Buddy Cannon, Paul Franklin, Hoot Hester, and Jimmy Belken of the Strangers. While many other members have played with them during their run from 1967 to 2017, below is a timeline of just the members during their recorded output.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Jacques Offenbach (, , , ; 20 June 18195 October 1880) was a German-born French composer, cellist and impresario of the Romantic period. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s to the 1870s, and his uncompleted opera "The Tales of Hoffmann". He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss Jr. and Arthur Sullivan. His best-known works were continually revived during the 20th century, and many of his operettas continue to be staged in the 21st. "The Tales of Hoffmann" remains part of the standard opera repertory.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Born in Cologne, the son of a synagogue cantor, Offenbach showed early musical talent. At the age of 14, he was accepted as a student at the Paris Conservatoire but found academic study unfulfilling and left after a year. From 1835 to 1855 he earned his living as a cellist, achieving international fame, and as a conductor. His ambition, however, was to compose comic pieces for the musical theatre. Finding the management of Paris' Opéra-Comique company uninterested in staging his works, in 1855 he leased a small theatre in the Champs-Élysées. There he presented a series of his own small-scale pieces, many of which became popular.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: In 1858, Offenbach produced his first full-length operetta, "Orphée aux enfers" ("Orpheus in the Underworld"), which was exceptionally well received and has remained one of his most played works. During the 1860s, he produced at least 18 full-length operettas, as well as more one-act pieces. His works from this period included "La belle Hélène" (1864), "La Vie parisienne" (1866), "La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein" (1867) and "La Périchole" (1868). The risqué humour (often about sexual intrigue) and mostly gentle satiric barbs in these pieces, together with Offenbach's facility for melody, made them internationally known, and translated versions were successful in Vienna, London and elsewhere in Europe.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Offenbach became associated with the Second French Empire of Napoleon III; the emperor and his court were genially satirised in many of Offenbach's operettas. Napoleon III personally granted him French citizenship and the Légion d'Honneur. With the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Offenbach found himself out of favour in Paris because of his imperial connections and his German birth. He remained successful in Vienna and London, however. He re-established himself in Paris during the 1870s, with revivals of some of his earlier favourites and a series of new works, and undertook a popular US tour. In his last years he strove to finish "The Tales of Hoffmann", but died before the premiere of the opera, which has entered the standard repertory in versions completed or edited by other musicians.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Offenbach was born Jacob (or Jakob) Offenbach to a Jewish family in the German city of Cologne, which was then a part of Prussia. His birthplace in the Großer Griechenmarkt was a short distance from the square that is now named after him, the Offenbachplatz. He was the second son and the seventh of ten children of Isaac Juda Offenbach "né" Eberst (1779–1850) and his wife Marianne, "née" Rindskopf (c. 1783–1840). Isaac, who came from a musical family, had abandoned his original trade as a bookbinder and earned an itinerant living as a cantor in synagogues and playing the violin in cafés. He was generally known as "der Offenbacher", after his native town, Offenbach am Main, and in 1808 he officially adopted Offenbach as a surname. In 1816 he settled in Cologne, where he became established as a teacher, giving lessons in singing, violin, flute, and guitar, and composing both religious and secular music.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: When Jacob was six years old, his father taught him to play the violin; within two years the boy was composing songs and dances, and at the age of nine he took up the cello. As he was by then the permanent cantor of the local synagogue, Isaac could afford to pay for his son to take lessons from the cellist Bernhard Breuer. Three years later, the biographer Gabriel Grovlez records, the boy was giving performances of his own compositions, "the technical difficulties of which terrified his master", Breuer. Together with his brother Julius (violin) and sister Isabella (piano), Jacob played in a trio at local dance halls, inns and cafés, performing popular dance music and operatic arrangements. In 1833, Isaac decided that the two most musically talented of his children, Julius and Jacob (then aged 18 and 14), needed to leave the provincial musical scene of Cologne to study in Paris. With generous support from local music lovers and the municipal orchestra, with whom they gave a farewell concert on 9 October, the two young musicians, accompanied by their father, made the four-day journey to Paris in November 1833.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Isaac had been given letters of introduction to the director of the Paris Conservatoire, Luigi Cherubini, but he needed all his eloquence to persuade Cherubini even to give Jacob an audition. The boy's age and nationality were both obstacles to admission. Cherubini had several years earlier refused the 12-year-old Franz Liszt admission on similar grounds, but he eventually agreed to hear the young Offenbach play. He listened to his playing and stopped him, saying, "Enough, young man, you are now a pupil of this Conservatoire." Julius was also admitted. Both brothers adopted French forms of their names, Julius becoming Jules and Jacob becoming Jacques.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Isaac hoped to secure permanent employment in Paris but failed to do so and returned to Cologne. Before leaving, he found a number of pupils for Jules; the modest earnings from those lessons, supplemented by fees earned by both brothers as members of synagogue choirs, supported them during their studies. At the conservatoire, Jules was a diligent student; he graduated and became a successful violin teacher and conductor, and led his younger brother's orchestra for several years. By contrast, Jacques was bored by academic study and left after a year. The conservatoire's roll of students notes against his name "Struck off on the 2 December 1834 (left of his own free will)".


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Having left the conservatoire, Offenbach was free from the stern academicism of Cherubini's curriculum, but as the biographer James Harding writes, "he was free, also, to starve." He secured a few temporary jobs in theatre orchestras before gaining a permanent appointment in 1835 as a cellist at the Opéra-Comique. He was no more serious there than he had been at the conservatoire, and regularly had his pay docked for playing pranks during performances; on one occasion, he and the principal cellist played alternate notes of the printed score, and on another they sabotaged some of their colleagues' music stands to make them collapse in mid-performance. Nevertheless, his earnings from his orchestral work enabled him to take lessons with the cellist Louis-Pierre Norblin. He made a favourable impression on the composer and conductor Fromental Halévy, who gave him lessons in composition and orchestration and wrote to Isaac Offenbach in Cologne that the young man was going to be a great composer. Some of Offenbach's early compositions were programmed by the conductor Louis Antoine Jullien. Offenbach and another young composer Friedrich von Flotow collaborated on a series of works for cello and piano. Although Offenbach's ambition was to compose for the stage, he could not gain an entrée to Parisian theatre at this point in his career; with Flotow's help, he built a reputation composing for and playing in the fashionable salons of Paris.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Among the salons at which Offenbach most frequently appeared was that of the comtesse de Vaux. There he met Hérminie d'Alcain (1827–1887), the daughter of a Carlist general. They fell in love, but he was not yet in a financial position to propose marriage. To extend his fame and earning power beyond Paris, he undertook tours of France and Germany. Among those with whom he performed were Anton Rubinstein and, in a concert in Offenbach's native Cologne, Liszt. In 1844, probably through English family connections of Hérminie, he embarked on a tour of England. There, he was immediately engaged to appear with some of the most famous musicians of the day, including Mendelssohn, Joseph Joachim, Michael Costa and Julius Benedict. "The Era" wrote of his debut performance in London, "His execution and taste excited both wonder and pleasure, the genius he exhibited amounting to absolute inspiration." The British press reported a triumphant royal command performance; "The Illustrated London News" wrote, "Herr Jacques Offenbach, the astonishing Violoncellist, performed on Thursday evening at Windsor before the Emperor of Russia, the King of Saxony, Queen Victoria, and Prince Albert with great success." The use of "Herr" rather than "Monsieur", reflecting the fact that Offenbach remained a Prussian citizen, was common to all the British press coverage of Offenbach's 1844 tour. The ambiguity of his nationality sometimes caused him difficulty in later life.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Offenbach returned to Paris with his reputation and his bank balance both much enhanced. The last remaining obstacle to his marriage to Hérminie was the difference in their professed religions; he converted to Roman Catholicism, with the comtesse de Vaux acting as his sponsor. Isaac Offenbach's views on his son's conversion from Judaism are unknown. The wedding took place on 14 August 1844; the bride was 17 years old, and the bridegroom was 25. The marriage was lifelong, and happy, despite some extramarital dalliances on Offenbach's part. After Offenbach's death, a friend said that Hérminie "gave him courage, shared his ordeals and comforted him always with tenderness and devotion".


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Returning to the familiar Paris salons, Offenbach quietly shifted the emphasis of his work from being a cellist who also composed to being a composer who played the cello. He had already published many compositions, and some of them had sold well, but now he began to write, perform and produce musical burlesques as part of his salon presentations. He amused the comtesse de Vaux's 200 guests with a parody of Félicien David's currently fashionable "Le désert", and in April 1846 gave a concert at which seven operatic items of his own composition were premiered before an audience that included leading music critics. After some encouragement and some temporary setbacks, he seemed on the verge of breaking into theatrical composition when Paris was convulsed by the 1848 revolution, which swept Louis Philippe from the throne and led to serious bloodshed in the streets of the capital. Offenbach hastily took Hérminie and their recently born daughter to join his family in Cologne. He thought it politic to revert temporarily to the name Jacob.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Returning to Paris in February 1849, Offenbach found the grand salons closed down. He went back to working as a cellist, and occasional conductor, at the Opéra-Comique, but was not encouraged in his aspirations to compose. His talents had been noted by the director of the Comédie-Française, Arsène Houssaye, who appointed him musical director of the theatre, with a brief to enlarge and improve the orchestra. Offenbach composed songs and incidental music for eleven classical and modern dramas for the Comédie-Française in the early 1850s. Some of his songs became very popular, and he gained valuable experience in writing for the theatre. Houssaye later wrote that Offenbach had done wonders for his theatre. The management of the Opéra-Comique, however, remained uninterested in commissioning him to compose for its stage. The composer Debussy later wrote that the musical establishment could not cope with Offenbach's irony, which exposed the "false, overblown quality" of the operas they favoured – "the great art at which one was not allowed to smile".


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Between 1853 and 1855, Offenbach wrote three one-act operettas and managed to have them staged in Paris. They were all well received, but the authorities of the Opéra-Comique remained unmoved. Offenbach found more encouragement from the composer, singer and impresario Florimond Ronger, known professionally as Hervé. At his theatre, the Folies-Nouvelles, which had opened the previous year, Hervé pioneered French light comic opera, or "opérette". In "The Musical Quarterly", Martial Teneo and Theodore Baker wrote, "Without the example set by Hervé, Offenbach might perhaps never have become the musician who penned "Orphée aux Enfers", "La belle Hélène", and so many other triumphant works." Offenbach approached Hervé, who agreed to present a new one-act operetta with words by Jules Moinaux and music by Offenbach, called "Oyayaye ou La reine des îles". It was presented on 26 June 1855 and was well received. Offenbach's biographer Peter Gammond describes it as "a charming piece of nonsense". The piece depicts a double-bass player, played by Hervé, shipwrecked on a cannibal island, who after several perilous encounters with the female chief of the cannibals makes his escape using his double-bass as a boat. Offenbach pressed ahead with plans to present his works himself at his own theatre and to abandon further thoughts of acceptance by the Opéra-Comique.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Offenbach had chosen his theatre, the Salle Lacaze in the Champs-Élysées. The location and the timing were ideal for him. Paris was about to be filled between May and November with visitors from France and abroad for the 1855 Great Exhibition. The Salle Lacaze was next to the exhibition site. He later wrote:


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: The description of the theatre as "little" was accurate: it could only hold an audience of at most 300. It was therefore well suited to the tiny casts permitted under the prevailing licensing laws: Offenbach was limited to three speaking (or singing) characters in any piece. With such small forces, full-length works were out of the question, and Offenbach, like Hervé, presented evenings of several one-act pieces. The opening of the theatre was a frantic rush, with less than a month between the issue of the licence and the opening night on 5 July 1855. During this period Offenbach had to "equip the theatre, recruit actors, orchestra and staff, find authors to write material for the opening programme – and compose the music." Among those he recruited at short notice was Ludovic Halévy, the nephew of Offenbach's early mentor Fromental Halévy. Ludovic was a respectable civil servant with a passion for the theatre and a gift for dialogue and verse. While maintaining his civil service career he went on to collaborate (sometimes under discreet pseudonyms) with Offenbach in 21 works over the next 24 years.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Halévy wrote the libretto for one of the pieces in the opening programme, but the most popular work of the evening had words by Moinaux. "Les deux aveugles", "The Two Blind Men" is a comedy about two beggars feigning blindness. During rehearsals there had been some concern that the public might judge it to be in poor taste, but it was not only the hit of the season in Paris: it was soon playing successfully in Vienna, London and elsewhere. Another success that summer was "Le violoneux", which made a star of Hortense Schneider in her first role for Offenbach. Aged 22, when she auditioned for him, she was engaged on the spot. From 1855 she was a key member of his companies through much of his career.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: The Champs-Élysées in 1855 were not yet the grand avenue laid out by Baron Haussmann in the 1860s, but an unpaved allée. The public who were flocking to Offenbach's theatre in the summer and autumn of 1855 could not be expected to venture there in the depths of a Parisian winter. He cast about for a suitable venue and found the Théâtre des Jeunes Élèves, known also as the Salle Choiseul or Théâtre Comte, in central Paris. He entered into partnership with its proprietor and moved the Bouffes-Parisiens there for the winter season. The company returned to the Salle Lacaze for the 1856, 1857, and 1859 summer seasons, performing at the Salle Choiseul in the winter. Legislation enacted in March 1861 prevented the company from using both theatres, and appearances at the Salle Lacaze were discontinued.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Offenbach's first piece for the company's new home was "Ba-ta-clan" (December 1855), a well-received piece of mock-oriental frivolity, to a libretto by Halévy. He followed it with 15 more one-act operettas over the next three years. They were all for the small casts permitted under his licence, although at the Salle Choiseul he was granted an increase from three to four singers.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Under Offenbach's management, the Bouffes-Parisiens staged works by many composers. These included new pieces by Leon Gastinel and Léo Delibes. When Offenbach asked Rossini's permission to revive his comedy "Il signor Bruschino", Rossini replied that he was pleased to be able to do anything for "the Mozart of the Champs-Élysées". Offenbach revered Mozart above all other composers. He had an ambition to present Mozart's neglected one-act comic opera "Der Schauspieldirektor" at the Bouffes-Parisiens, and he acquired the score from Vienna. With a text translated and adapted by Léon Battu and Ludovic Halévy, he presented it during the Mozart centenary celebrations in May 1856 as "L'impresario"; it was popular with the public and also greatly enhanced the critical and social standing of the Bouffes-Parisiens. By command of the emperor, Napoleon III, the company performed at the Tuileries palace shortly after the first performance of the Mozart piece.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: In a long article in "Le Figaro" in July 1856, Offenbach traced the history of comic opera. He declared that the first work worthy to be called opéra-comique was Philidor's 1759 "Blaise le savetier", and he described the gradual divergence of Italian and French notions of comic opera, with verve, imagination and gaiety from Italian composers, and cleverness, common sense, good taste and wit from the French composers. He concluded that comic opera had become too grand and inflated. His disquisition was a preliminary to the announcement of an open competition for aspiring composers. A jury of French composers and playwrights including Daniel Auber, Fromental Halévy, Ambroise Thomas, Charles Gounod and Eugène Scribe considered 78 entries; the five short-listed entrants were all asked to set a libretto, "Le docteur miracle", written by Ludovic Halévy and Léon Battu. The joint winners were Georges Bizet and Charles Lecocq. Bizet became, and remained, a devoted friend of Offenbach. Lecocq and Offenbach took a dislike to one another, and their subsequent rivalry was not altogether friendly.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Although the Bouffes-Parisiens played to full houses, the theatre was constantly on the verge of running out of money, principally because of what his biographer Alexander Faris calls "Offenbach's incorrigible extravagance as a manager". An earlier biographer, André Martinet, wrote, "Jacques spent money without counting. Whole lengths of velvet were swallowed up in the auditorium; costumes devoured width after width of satin." Moreover, Offenbach was personally generous and liberally hospitable. To boost the company's finances, a London season was organised in 1857, with half the company remaining in Paris to play at the Salle Choiseul and the other half performing at the St James's Theatre in the West End of London. The visit was a success, but did not cause the sensation that Offenbach's later works did in London.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: In 1858, the government lifted the licensing restrictions on the number of performers, and Offenbach was able to present more ambitious works. His first full-length operetta, "Orphée aux enfers" ("Orpheus in the Underworld"), was presented in October 1858. Offenbach, as usual, spent freely on the production, with scenery by Gustave Doré, lavish costumes, a cast of twenty principals, and a large chorus and orchestra.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: As the company was particularly short of money following an abortive season in Berlin, a big success was urgently needed. At first the production seemed merely to be a modest success. It soon benefited from an outraged review by Jules Janin, the critic of the "Journal des Débats"; he condemned the piece for profanity and irreverence (ostensibly to Roman mythology but in reality to Napoleon and his government, generally seen as the targets of its satire). Offenbach and his librettist Hector Crémieux seized on this free publicity, and joined in a lively public debate in the columns of the Parisian daily newspaper "Le Figaro". Janin's indignation made the public agog to see the work, and the box office takings were prodigious. Among those who wanted to see the satire of the emperor was the emperor himself, who commanded a performance in April 1860. Despite many great successes during the rest of Offenbach's career, "Orphée aux enfers" remained his most popular. Gammond lists among the reasons for its success, "the sweeping waltzes" reminiscent of Vienna but with a new French flavour, the patter songs, and "above all else, of course, the can-can which had led a naughty life in low places since the 1830s or thereabouts and now became a polite fashion, as uninhibited as ever."


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: In the 1859 season, the Bouffes-Parisiens presented new works by composers including Flotow, Jules Erlanger, Alphonse Varney, Léo Delibes, and Offenbach himself. Of Offenbach's new pieces, "Geneviève de Brabant", though initially only a mild success, was later revised and gained much popularity where the duet of the two gendarmes became a favourite number in England and France and the basis for the Marines' Hymn in the U.S.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: The 1860s were Offenbach's most successful decade. At the beginning of 1860, he was granted French citizenship by the personal command of Napoleon III, and the following year he was appointed a Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur; this appointment scandalised those haughty and exclusive members of the musical establishment who resented such an honour for a composer of popular light opera. Offenbach began the decade with his only stand-alone ballet, "Le papillon" ("The Butterfly"), produced at the Opéra in 1860. It achieved what was then a successful run of 42 performances, without, as the biographer Andrew Lamb says, "giving him any greater acceptance in more respectable circles." Among other operettas in the same year, he finally had a piece presented by the Opéra-Comique, the three-act "Barkouf". It was not a success; its plot revolved around a dog, and Offenbach attempted canine imitations in his music. Neither the public nor the critics were impressed, and the piece survived for only seven performances.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Apart from that setback, Offenbach flourished in the 1860s, with successes greatly outnumbering failures. In 1861 he led the company in a summer season in Vienna. Encountering packed houses and enthusiastic reviews, Offenbach found Vienna much to his liking. He even reverted, for a single evening, to his old role as a cello virtuoso at a command performance before Emperor Franz Joseph. That success was followed by a failure in Berlin. Offenbach, though born a Prussian citizen, observed, "Prussia never does anything to make those of our nationality happy." He and the company hastened back to Paris. Meanwhile, among his operettas that season were the full-length "Le pont des soupirs" and the one-act "M. Choufleuri restera chez lui le...".


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: In 1862, Offenbach's only son, Auguste (died 1883), was born, the last of five children. In the same year, Offenbach resigned as director of the Bouffes-Parisiens, handing the post over to Alphonse Varney. He continued to write most of his works for the company, with the exception of occasional pieces for the summer season at Bad Ems. Despite problems with the libretto, Offenbach completed a serious opera in 1864, "Die Rheinnixen", a hotchpotch of romantic and mythological themes. The opera was presented with substantial cuts at the Vienna Court Opera and in Cologne in 1865. It was not given again until 2002, when it was finally performed in its entirety. Since then it has been given several productions. It contained one number, the "Elfenchor", described by the critic Eduard Hanslick as "lovely, luring and sensuous", which Ernest Guiraud later adapted as the Barcarolle in "The Tales of Hoffmann". After December 1864, Offenbach wrote less frequently for the Bouffes-Parisiens, and many of his new works premiered at larger theatres.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Between 1864 and 1868, Offenbach wrote four of the operettas for which he is chiefly remembered: "La belle Hélène" (1864), "La Vie parisienne" (1866), "La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein" (1867) and "La Périchole" (1868). Halévy was joined as librettist for all of them by Henri Meilhac. Offenbach, who called them "Meil" and "Hal", said of this trinity: "Je suis sans doute le Père, mais chacun des deux est mon Fils et plein d'Esprit," a play on words loosely translated as "I am certainly the Father, but each of them is my Son and Wholly Spirited".


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: For "La belle Hélène", Offenbach secured Hortense Schneider to play the title role. Since her early success in his short operas, she had become a leading star of the French musical stage. She now commanded large fees and was notoriously temperamental, but Offenbach was adamant that no other singer could match her as Hélène. Rehearsals for the premiere at the Théâtre des Variétés were tempestuous, with Schneider and the principal mezzo-soprano Léa Silly feuding, the censor fretting about the satire of the imperial court, and the manager of the theatre attempting to rein in Offenbach's extravagance with production expenses. Once again the success of the piece was inadvertently assured by the critic Janin; his scandalised notice was strongly countered by liberal critics and the ensuing publicity again brought the public flocking.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: "Barbe-bleue" was a success in early 1866 and was quickly reproduced elsewhere. "La Vie parisienne" later in the same year was a new departure for Offenbach and his librettists; for the first time in a large-scale piece they chose a modern setting, instead of disguising their satire under a classical cloak. It needed no accidental boost from Janin but was an instant and prolonged success with Parisian audiences, although its very Parisian themes made it less popular abroad. Gammond describes the libretto as "almost worthy of [W.S.] Gilbert", and Offenbach's score as "certainly his best so far". The piece starred Zulma Bouffar, who began an affair with the composer that lasted until at least 1875.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: In 1867, Offenbach had his greatest success. The premiere of "La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein", a satire on militarism, took place two days after the opening of the Paris Exhibition, an even greater international draw than the 1855 exhibition which had helped him launch his composing career. The Parisian public and foreign visitors flocked to the new operetta. Sovereigns who saw the piece included the King of Prussia accompanied by his chief minister, Otto von Bismarck. Halévy, with his experience as a senior civil servant, saw more clearly than most the looming threat from Prussia; he wrote in his diary, "Bismarck is helping to double our takings. This time it's war we're laughing at, and war is at our gates." "La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein" was followed quickly by a series of successful pieces: "Robinson Crusoé", "Geneviève de Brabant" (revised version; both 1867), "Le château à Toto", "Le pont des soupirs" (revised version) and "L'île de Tulipatan" (all in 1868).


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: In October 1868, "La Périchole" marked a transition in Offenbach's style, with less exuberant satire and more human romantic interest. Lamb calls it Offenbach's "most charming" score. There was some critical grumbling at the change, but the piece, with Schneider in the lead, did good business. It was quickly produced in Europe and both North and South America. Of the pieces that followed it at the end of the decade, "Les brigands" (1869) was another work that leaned more to romantic comic opera than to opéra bouffe. It was well received, but has not subsequently been revived as often as Offenbach's best-known operettas.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Offenbach returned hurriedly from Ems and Wiesbaden before the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. He then went to his home in Étretat and arranged for his family to move to the safety of San Sebastián in northern Spain, joining them shortly afterwards. Having risen to fame under Napoleon III, satirised him, and been rewarded by him, Offenbach was universally associated with the old régime: he was known as "the mocking-bird of the Second Empire". When the empire fell in the wake of Prussia's crushing victory at Sedan (1870), Offenbach's music was suddenly out of favour. France was swept by violently anti-German sentiments, and despite his French citizenship and Légion d'honneur, his birth and upbringing in Cologne made him suspect. His operettas were now frequently vilified as the embodiment of everything superficial and worthless in Napoleon III's régime. "La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein" was banned in France because of its antimilitarist satire.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Although his Parisian audience deserted him, Offenbach had by now become highly popular in England. John Hollingshead of the Gaiety Theatre presented Offenbach's operettas to large and enthusiastic audiences. Between 1870 and 1872, the Gaiety produced 15 of his works. At the Royalty Theatre, Richard D'Oyly Carte presented "La Périchole" in 1875. In Vienna, too, Offenbach works were regularly produced. While the war and its aftermath ravaged Paris, the composer supervised Viennese productions and travelled to England as the guest of the Prince of Wales.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: By the end of 1871 life in Paris had returned to normal, and Offenbach ended his voluntary exile. His new works "Le roi Carotte" (1872) and "La jolie parfumeuse" (1873) were modestly profitable, but lavish revivals of his earlier successes did better business. He decided to go back into theatre management and took over the Théâtre de la Gaîté in July 1873. His spectacular revival of "Orphée aux enfers" there was highly profitable; an attempt to repeat that success with a new, lavish version of "Geneviève de Brabant" proved less popular. Along with the costs of extravagant productions, collaboration with the dramatist Victorien Sardou culminated in financial disaster. An expensive production of Sardou's "La haine" in 1874, with incidental music by Offenbach, failed to attract the public to the Gaîté, and Offenbach was forced to sell his interests in the Gaîté and to mortgage future royalties.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: In 1876 a successful tour of the United States in connection with its Centennial Exhibition enabled Offenbach to recover some of his losses and pay his debts. Beginning with a concert at Gilmore's Garden before a crowd of 8,000 people, he gave a series of more than 40 concerts in New York and Philadelphia. To circumvent a Philadelphia law forbidding entertainments on Sundays, he disguised his operetta numbers as liturgical pieces and advertised a "Grand Sacred Concert by M. Offenbach". "Dis-moi, Vénus" from "La belle Hélène" became a ""Litanie"", and other equally secular numbers were billed as ""Prière"" or ""Hymne"". The local authorities were not deceived, and the concert did not take place. At Booth's Theatre, New York, Offenbach conducted "La vie parisienne" and his recent (1873) "La jolie parfumeuse". He returned to France in July 1876, with profits that were handsome but not spectacular.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Offenbach's later operettas enjoyed renewed popularity in France, especially "Madame Favart" (1878), which featured a fantasy plot about the real-life French actress Marie Justine Favart, and "La fille du tambour-major" (1879), which was the most successful of his operettas of the 1870s.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Profitable though "La fille du tambour-major" was, composing it left Offenbach less time to work on his cherished project, the creation of a successful serious opera. Since the beginning of 1877, he had been working when he could on a piece based on a stage play, "Les contes fantastiques d'Hoffmann", by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré. Offenbach had suffered from gout since the 1860s, often being carried into the theatre in a chair. Now in failing health, he was conscious of his own mortality and wished passionately to live long enough to complete the opera "Les contes d'Hoffmann" ("The Tales of Hoffmann"). He was heard saying to Kleinzach, his dog, "I would give everything I have to be at the première". However, Offenbach did not live to finish the piece. He left the vocal score substantially complete and had made a start on the orchestration. Ernest Guiraud, a family friend, assisted by Offenbach's 18-year-old son Auguste, completed the orchestration, making significant changes as well as the substantial cuts demanded by the Opéra-Comique's director, Carvalho. The opera was first seen at the Opéra-Comique on 10 February 1881; Guiraud added recitatives for the Vienna premiere, in December 1881, and other versions were made later.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Offenbach died in Paris in 1880 at the age of 61. His cause of death was certified as heart failure brought on by acute gout. He was given a state funeral; "The Times" wrote, "The crowd of distinguished men that accompanied him on his last journey amid the general sympathy of the public shows that the late composer was reckoned among the masters of his art." He is buried in the Montmartre Cemetery.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Among other well-known Offenbach numbers are the Doll Song, "Les oiseaux dans la charmille" ("The Tales of Hoffmann"); "Voici le sabre de mon père" and "Ah! Que j'aime les militaires" ("La Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein"); and "Tu n'es pas beau" in "La Périchole", which Lamb notes was Offenbach's last major song for Hortense Schneider.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: By his own reckoning, Offenbach composed more than 100 operas. Both the number and the noun are open to question: some works were so extensively revised that he evidently counted the revised versions as new, and commentators generally refer to all but a few of his stage works as operettas, rather than operas. Offenbach reserved the term "opérette" (English: operetta) or "opérette bouffe" for some of his one-act works, more often using the term "opéra bouffe" for his full-length ones (though there are a number of one- and two-act examples of this type). It was only with the further development of the "Operette" genre in Vienna after 1870 that the French term "opérette" began to be used for works longer than one act. Offenbach also used the term "opéra-comique" for at least 24 of his works in either one, two or three acts.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Offenbach's earliest operettas were one-act pieces for small casts. More than 30 of these were presented before his first full-scale ""opéra bouffon"", "Orphée aux enfers", in 1858, and he composed over 20 more of them during the rest of his career. Lamb, following the precedent of Henseler's 1930 study of the composer, divides the one-act pieces into five categories: "(i) country idylls; (ii) urban operettas; (iii) military operettas; (iv) farces; and (v) burlesques or parodies." Offenbach enjoyed his greatest success in the 1860s. His most popular operettas from the decade have remained among his best known.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: The first ideas for plots usually came from Offenbach, with his librettists working on lines agreed with him. Lamb writes, "In this respect Offenbach was both well served and skilful at discovering talent. Like Sullivan, and unlike Johann Strauss II, he was consistently blessed with workable subjects and genuinely witty librettos." He took advantage of the rhythmic flexibility of the French language, but sometimes took this to extremes, forcing words into unnatural stresses. Harding comments that he "wrought much violence on the French language". A frequent characteristic of Offenbach's word setting was the nonsensical repetition of isolated syllables of words for comic effect; an example is the quintet for the kings in "La belle Hélène": "Je suis l'époux de la reine/Poux de la reine/Poux de la reine" and "Le roi barbu qui s'avance/Bu qui s'avance/Bu qui s'avance."


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: In general, Offenbach followed simple, established forms. His melodies are usually short and unvaried in their basic rhythm, rarely, in Hughes's words, escaping "the despotism of the four-bar phrase". In modulation Offenbach was similarly cautious; he rarely switched a melody to a remote or unexpected key, and kept mostly to a tonic–dominant–subdominant pattern. Within these conventional limits, he employed greater resource in his varied use of rhythm; in a single number he would contrast rapid patter for one singer with a broad, smooth phrase for another, illustrating their different characters. Similarly, he often switched quickly between major and minor keys, effectively contrasting characters or situations. When he wished to, Offenbach could use unconventional techniques, such as the leitmotiv, used throughout to accompany the eponymous Docteur Ox (1877) and to parody Wagner in "La carnaval des revues" (1860).


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: In his early pieces for the Bouffes-Parisiens, the size of the orchestra pit had restricted Offenbach to an orchestra of 16 players. He composed for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, two horns, piston, trombone, timpani and percussion and a small string section of seven players. After moving to the Salle Choiseul he had an orchestra of 30 players. The musicologist and Offenbach specialist Jean-Christophe Keck notes that when larger orchestras were available, either in bigger Paris theatres or in Vienna or elsewhere, Offenbach would compose, or rearrange existing music, accordingly. Surviving scores show his instrumentation for additional wind and brass, and even extra percussion. When they were available he wrote for cor anglais, harp, and, exceptionally, Keck records, an ophicleide ("Le Papillon"), tubular bells ("Le carnaval des revues"), and a wind machine (Le voyage dans la lune).


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Hughes describes Offenbach's orchestration as "always skilful, often delicate, and occasionally subtle." He instances Pluton's song in "Orphée aux enfers", introduced by a three-bar phrase for solo clarinet and solo bassoon in octaves immediately repeated on solo flute and solo bassoon an octave higher. In Keck's view, "Offenbach's orchestral scoring is full of details, elaborate counter-voices, minute interactions coloured by interjections of the woodwinds or brass, all of which establish a dialogue with the voices. His refinement of design equals that of Mozart or Rossini."


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Offenbach often composed amidst noise and distractions. According to Keck, Offenbach would first make a note of melodies a libretto suggested to him in a notebook or straight onto the librettist's manuscript. Next using full score manuscript paper he wrote down vocal parts in the centre, then a piano accompaniment at the bottom possibly with notes on orchestration. When Offenbach felt sure the work would be performed, he began full orchestration, often employing a codified system.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Offenbach was well known for parodying other composers' music. Some of them saw the joke and others did not. Adam, Auber and Meyerbeer enjoyed Offenbach's parodies of their scores. Meyerbeer made a point of attending all Bouffes-Parisiens productions, always seated in Offenbach's private box. Among the composers who were not amused by Offenbach's parodies were Berlioz and Wagner. Offenbach mocked Berlioz's "strivings after the antique", and his initial light-hearted satire of Wagner's pretensions later hardened into genuine dislike. Berlioz reacted by bracketing Offenbach and Wagner together as "the product of the mad German mind", and Wagner, ignoring Berlioz, retaliated by writing some unflattering verses about Offenbach.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: In general, Offenbach's parodistic technique was simply to play the original music in unexpected and incongruous circumstances. He slipped the banned revolutionary anthem "La Marseillaise" into the chorus of rebellious gods in "Orphée aux enfers", and quoted the aria "Che farò" from Gluck's "Orfeo" in the same work; in "La belle Hélène" he quoted the patriotic trio from Rossini's "Guillaume Tell" and parodied himself in the ensemble for the kings of Greece, in which the accompaniment quotes the "rondeau" from "Orphée aux enfers". In his one act pieces, Offenbach parodied Rossini's "Largo al factotum" and familiar arias by Bellini. In "Croquefer" (1857), one duet consists of quotations from Halévy's "La Juive" and Meyerbeer's "Robert le Diable" and "Les Huguenots." Even in his later, less satirical period, he included a parodic quotation from Donizetti's "La fille du régiment" in "La fille du tambour-major".


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Other examples of Offenbach's use of incongruity are noted by the critic Paul Taylor: "In "La belle Hélène", the kings of Greece denounce Paris as 'un vil séducteur' to a waltz tempo that is itself unsuitably seductive ... the potty-sounding phrase 'L'homme à la pomme' becomes the absurd nucleus of a big cod-ensemble." Another lyric set to absurdly ceremonious music is "Votre habit a craqué dans le dos" ("Your coat has split down the back") in "La vie parisienne". The Grand Duchess of Gérolstein's rondo "Ah! Que j'aime les militaires" is rhythmically and melodically similar to the finale of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, but it is not clear whether the similarity is parodic or coincidental.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: In Offenbach's last decade, he took note of a change in public taste: a simpler, more romantic style was now preferred. Harding writes that Lecocq had successfully moved away from satire and parody, returning to "the genuine spirit of opéra-comique and its peculiarly French gaiety." Offenbach followed suit in a series of 20 operettas; the conductor and musicologist Antonio de Almeida names the finest of these as "La fille du tambour-major" (1879).


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Of Offenbach's two serious operas, "Die Rheinnixen", a failure, was not revived until the 21st century. His second attempt, "The Tales of Hoffmann", was originally intended as a grand opera. When the work was accepted by Léon Carvalho for production at the Opéra-Comique, Offenbach agreed to make it an opéra comique with spoken dialogue. It was incomplete when he died; Faris speculates that, but for Georges Bizet's premature death, Bizet rather than Guiraud would have been asked to complete the piece and would have done so more satisfactorily. The critic Tim Ashley writes, "Stylistically, the opera reveals a remarkable amalgam of French and German influences ... Weberian chorales preface Hoffmann's narrative. Olympia delivers a big coloratura aria straight out of French grand opera, while Antonia sings herself to death to music reminiscent of Schubert."


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Although he wrote ballet music for many of his operettas, Offenbach wrote only one ballet, "Le papillon". The score was much praised for its orchestration, and it contained one number, the "Valse des rayons", that became an international success. Between 1836 and 1875 he composed several individual waltzes and polkas, and suites of dances. They include a waltz, "Abendblätter" ("Evening Papers") composed for Vienna with Johann Strauss's "Morgenblätter" ("Morning Papers") as a companion piece. Other orchestral compositions include a piece in 17th-century style with cello solo, which became a standard work of the cello repertoire. Little of Offenbach's non-operatic orchestral music has been regularly performed since his death.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Offenbach composed more than 50 non-operatic songs between 1838 and 1854, most of them to French texts, by authors including Alfred de Musset, Théophile Gautier and Jean de La Fontaine, and also ten to German texts. Among the most popular of these songs are "À toi" (1843), dedicated to the young Hérminie d'Alcain as an early token of his love. An Ave Maria for soprano solo was recently rediscovered at the Bibliothèque nationale de France.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Although the overtures to "Orphée aux enfers" and "La belle Hélene" are well known and frequently recorded, the scores usually performed and recorded were not composed by Offenbach, but were arranged by Carl Binder and Eduard Haensch, respectively, for the Vienna premieres of the two works. Offenbach's own preludes are much shorter.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: In 1938, Manuel Rosenthal assembled the popular ballet "Gaîté Parisienne" from his own orchestral arrangements of melodies from Offenbach's stage works, and in 1953 the same composer assembled a symphonic suite, "Offenbachiana", also from music by Offenbach. Jean-Christophe Keck regards the 1938 work as "no more than a vulgarly orchestrated pastiche"; in Gammond's view, however, it does "full justice" to Offenbach.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Efforts to present critical editions of Offenbach's works have been hampered by the dispersion of his autograph scores to several collections after his death, some of which do not grant access to scholars.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: The musician and author Fritz Spiegl wrote in 1980, "Without Offenbach there would have been no Savoy Opera … no "Die Fledermaus" or "Merry Widow". The two creators of the Savoy operas, the librettist, Gilbert, and the composer, Sullivan, were both indebted to Offenbach and his partners for their satiric and musical styles, even borrowing plot components. For example, Faris argues that the mock-oriental "Ba-ta-clan" influenced "The Mikado", including its character names: Offenbach's Ko-ko-ri-ko and Gilbert's Ko-Ko; Faris also compares "Le pont des soupirs" (1861) and "The Gondoliers" (1889): "in both works there are choruses "à la barcarolle" for gondoliers and "contadini" [in] thirds and sixths; Offenbach has a Venetian admiral telling of his cowardice in battle; Gilbert and Sullivan have their Duke of Plaza-Toro who led his regiment from behind." Offenbach's "Les Géorgiennes" (1864), like Gilbert and Sullivan's "Princess Ida" (1884), depicts a female stronghold challenged by males in disguise. The best-known instance in which a Savoy opera draws on Offenbach's work is "The Pirates of Penzance" (1879), where both Gilbert and Sullivan follow the lead of "Les brigands" (1869) in their treatment of the police, plodding along ineffectually in heavy march-time. "Les brigands" was presented in London in 1871, 1873 and 1875; for the first of these, Gilbert made an English translation of Meilhac and Halévy's libretto.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: However much the young Sullivan was influenced by Offenbach, the influence was evidently not in only one direction. Hughes observes that two numbers in Offenbach's "Maître Péronilla" (1878) bear "an astonishing resemblance" to "My name is John Wellington Wells" from Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Sorcerer" (1877).


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: It is not clear how directly Offenbach influenced Johann Strauss. He had encouraged Strauss to turn to operetta when they met in Vienna in 1864, but it was not until seven years later that Strauss did so. However, Offenbach's operettas were well established in Vienna, and Strauss worked on the lines established by his French colleague; in 1870s Vienna, an operetta composer who did not do so was quickly called to order by the press. In Gammond's view, the Viennese composer most influenced by Offenbach was Franz von Suppé, who studied Offenbach's works carefully and wrote many successful operettas using them as a model.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: In his 1957 article, Lubbock wrote, "Offenbach is undoubtedly the most significant figure in the history of the 'musical'," and traced the development of musical theatre from Offenbach to Irving Berlin and Rodgers and Hammerstein, via Franz Lehár, André Messager, Sullivan and Lionel Monckton.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: During Offenbach's lifetime, and in the obituary notices in 1880, fastidious critics (dubbed "Musical Snobs Ltd" by Gammond) showed themselves at odds with public appreciation. In a 1980 article in "The Musical Times", George Hauger commented that those critics not only underrated Offenbach, but wrongly supposed that his music would soon be forgotten. Although most critics of the time made that erroneous assumption, a few perceived Offenbach's unusual quality; in "The Times", Francis Hueffer wrote, "none of his numerous Parisian imitators has ever been able to rival Offenbach at his best." Nevertheless, the paper joined in the general prediction: "It is very doubtful whether any of his works will survive." "The New York Times" shared this view: "That he had the gift of melody in a very extraordinary degree is not to be denied, but he wrote "currente calamo", and the lack of development of his choicest inspirations will, it is to be feared, keep them from reaching even the next generation". After the posthumous production of "The Tales of Hoffmann", "The Times" partially reconsidered its judgment, writing, ""Les Contes de Hoffmann" [will] confirm the opinion of those who regard him as a great composer in every sense of the word". It then lapsed into what Gammond calls "Victorian sanctimoniousness" by taking it for granted that the opera "will uphold Offenbach's fame long after his lighter compositions have passed out of memory."


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: The critic Sacheverell Sitwell compared Offenbach's lyrical and comic gifts to those of Mozart and Rossini. Friedrich Nietzsche called Offenbach both an "artistic genius" and a "clown", but wrote that "nearly every one" of Offenbach's works achieves half a dozen "moments of wanton perfection". Émile Zola commented on Offenbach and his work in a novel ("Nana") and an essay, "La féerie et l'opérette IV/V". While granting that Offenbach's best operettas are full of grace, charm and wit, Zola blames Offenbach for what others have made out of the genre. Zola calls operetta a "public enemy" and a "monstrous beast". While some critics saw the satire in Offenbach's works as a social protest, an attack against the establishment, Zola saw the works as a homage to the social system in the Second Empire.


title: Jacques Offenbach

text: Otto Klemperer was an admirer; late in life he reflected: "At the Kroll we did "La Périchole". That's a really delightful score. So is "Orpheus in the Underworld" and "Belle Hélène". Those who called him 'The Mozart of the Boulevards' were not much mistaken". Debussy, Bizet, Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov loved Offenbach's operettas. Debussy rated them higher than "The Tales of Hoffmann": "The one work in which [Offenbach] tried to be serious met with no success." A London critic wrote, on Offenbach's death:


title: Roger Zelazny

text: Roger Joseph Zelazny (May 13, 1937 – June 14, 1995) was an American poet and writer of fantasy and science fiction short stories and novels, best known for "The Chronicles of Amber". He won the Nebula Award three times (out of 14 nominations) and the Hugo Award six times (also out of 14 nominations), including two Hugos for novels: the serialized novel "...And Call Me Conrad" (1965), subsequently published under the title "This Immortal" (1966) and then the novel "Lord of Light" (1967).


title: Roger Zelazny

text: Zelazny was born in Euclid, Ohio, the only child of Polish immigrant Joseph Frank Żelazny and Irish-American Josephine Flora Sweet. In high school, he became the editor of the school newspaper and joined the Creative Writing Club. In the fall of 1955, he began attending Western Reserve University and graduated with a B.A. in English in 1959. He was accepted to Columbia University in New York and specialized in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, graduating with an M.A. in 1962. His M.A. thesis was entitled "Two traditions and Cyril Tourneur: an examination of morality and humor comedy conventions in The Revenger's Tragedy."


title: Roger Zelazny

text: Between 1962 and 1969 he worked for the U.S. Social Security Administration in Cleveland, Ohio, and then in Baltimore, Maryland, spending his evenings writing science fiction. He deliberately progressed from short-shorts to novelettes to novellas and finally to novel-length works by 1965. On May 1, 1969, he quit to become a full-time writer, and thereafter concentrated on writing novels in order to maintain his income. During this period, he was an active and vocal member of the Baltimore Science Fiction Society, whose members included writers Jack Chalker and Joe and Jack Haldeman among others.


title: Roger Zelazny

text: His first fanzine appearance was part one of the story "Conditional Benefit" ("Thurban 1" #3, 1953) and his first professional publication and sale was the fantasy short story "Mr. Fuller's Revolt" ("Literary Calvalcade", 1954). As a professional writer, his debut works were the simultaneous publication of "Passion Play" ("Amazing", August 1962) and "Horseman!" ("Fantastic", August 1962). "Passion Play" was written and sold first. His first story to attract major attention was "A Rose for Ecclesiastes", published in "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction", with cover art by Hannes Bok.


title: Roger Zelazny

text: Roger Zelazny was also a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America (SAGA), a loose-knit group of heroic fantasy authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose works were anthologized in Lin Carter's "Flashing Swords!" anthologies.


title: Roger Zelazny

text: Zelazny was married twice, first to Sharon Steberl in 1964 (divorced, no children), and then to Judith Alene Callahan in 1966. Prior to this he was engaged to folk singer Hedy West for six months from 1961 to 1962. Roger and Judith had two sons, Devin and Trent (an author of crime fiction) and a daughter, Shannon. At the time of his death, Roger and Judith were separated and he was living with author Jane Lindskold.


title: Roger Zelazny

text: Raised as a Catholic by his parents, Zelazny later declared himself a lapsed Catholic and remained that way for the rest of his life. "I did have a strong Catholic background, but I am not a Catholic. Somewhere in the past, I believe I answered in the affirmative once for strange and complicated reasons. But I am not a member of any organized religion."


title: Roger Zelazny

text: Zelazny died in Santa Fe on June 16, 1995, of kidney failure associated with cancer. He was a twenty-year resident of Santa Fe then.


title: Roger Zelazny

text: In his stories, Zelazny frequently portrayed characters from myth, depicted in the modern or a future world. Zelazny included many anachronisms, such as cigarette-smoking and references to modern drama, in his work. His crisp, minimalistic dialogue also seems to be somewhat influenced by the style of wisecracking hardboiled crime authors, such as Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett. The tension between the ancient and the modern, surreal and familiar was what drove most of his work.


title: Roger Zelazny

text: A very frequent motif in Zelazny's work is immortality or people who (have) become gods (as well as gods who have turned into people). The mythological traditions his fiction borrowed from include:


title: Roger Zelazny

text: Additionally, elements from Norse, Japanese and Irish mythology, Arthurian legend, and real history appear in "The Chronicles of Amber". "A Night in the Lonesome October" involves the Cthulhu Mythos in a similar vein.


title: Roger Zelazny

text: Aside from working with mythological themes, the most common recurring motif of Zelazny's is the "absent father" (or father-figure). Again, this occurs most notably in the Amber novels: in the first Amber series, the protagonist Corwin searches for his lost, god-like father Oberon; while in the second series, which focuses on Corwin's son Merlin (not to be confused with the Arthurian Merlin), it is Corwin himself who is strangely missing. This somewhat Freudian theme runs through almost every Zelazny novel to a smaller or larger degree. "Roadmarks", "Doorways in the Sand", "Changeling", "Madwand", "A Dark Traveling"; the short stories "Dismal Light", "Godson", "The Keys to December"; and the "Alien Speedway" series all feature main characters who are either searching for or have lost their fathers. Zelazny's father, Joseph, died unexpectedly in 1962 and never knew his son's successes as a writer; this event may have triggered Zelazny's unconscious and frequent use of the absent father motif.


title: Roger Zelazny

text: Two other personal characteristics that influenced his fiction were his expertise in martial arts and his addiction to tobacco. Zelazny became expert with the épée in college, and thus began a lifelong study of several different martial arts, including judo, aikido (which he later taught as well, having gained a black belt), t'ai chi, and pa kua. In turn, many of his characters ably and knowledgeably use similar skills whilst dispatching their opponents. Zelazny was also a passionate cigarette and pipe smoker (until he quit in the early '80s), so much so, that he made many of his protagonists heavy smokers as well. However, he quit in order to improve his cardiovascular fitness for the martial arts; once he had quit, characters in his later novels and short stories stopped smoking too.


title: Roger Zelazny

text: Another characteristic of Zelazny's writing is that many of his protagonists had sufficient familiarity with other languages to be able to quote French, German, Italian or Latin aphorisms when the occasion seemed appropriate (or even inappropriate), although Zelazny himself did not speak any of those languages.


title: Roger Zelazny

text: He also often experimented with form in his stories. The novel "Doorways in the Sand" practices a flashback technique in which most chapters open with a scene, typically involving peril, not implied by the end of the previous chapter. Once the scene is established, the narrator backtracks to the events leading up to it, then follows through to the end of the chapter, whereupon the next chapter jumps ahead to another dramatic "non-sequitur".


title: Roger Zelazny

text: In "Roadmarks", a novel about a road system that links all possible times, places and histories, the chapters that feature the protagonist are all titled "One". Other chapters, titled "Two", feature secondary characters, including original characters, pulp heroes, and real historical characters. The "One" storyline is fairly linear, whereas the "Two" storyline jumps around in time and sequence. After finishing the manuscript, Zelazny shuffled the "Two" chapters randomly among the "One" chapters in order to emphasize their non-linear nature relative to the storyline.


title: Roger Zelazny

text: "Creatures of Light and Darkness", featuring characters in the personae of Egyptian gods, uses a narrative voice entirely in the present tense; the final chapter is structured as a play, and several chapters take the form of long poems.


title: Roger Zelazny

text: Zelazny also tended to write a short fragment, not intended for publication, as a kind of backstory for a major character, as a way of giving that character a life independent of the particular novel being worked on. At least one "fragment" was published, the short story "Dismal Light", originally a backstory for "Isle of the Dead"s Francis Sandow. Sandow himself figures little in "Dismal Light", the main character being his son, who is delaying his escape from an unstable star system in order to force his distant father to come in and ask him personally. While "Isle of the Dead" has Sandow living a life of irresponsible luxury as an escape from his personal demons, "Dismal Light" anchors his character as one who will face up to his responsibilities, however reluctantly.


title: Roger Zelazny

text: Another common stylistic approach in his novels is the use of "mixed genres", whereby elements of each are combined freely and interchangeably. "Jack of Shadows" and "Changeling", for example, revolve around the tensions between the two worlds of magic and technology. "Lord of Light", perhaps one of his most famous works, is written in the classic style of a mythic fantasy, while it is established early in the book that the story itself takes place on a colonized planet.


title: Roger Zelazny

text: Many of Zelazny's works explore variations upon the idea that if there exists an infinite number of worlds, then every world that can be imagined must exist, somewhere. Powerful beings in many of his stories have the ability to travel to worlds that possess precisely the characteristics which that being wishes to experience. (Zelazny characters with this ability include Thoth in "Creatures of Light and Darkness", who teleports to these worlds; those with the royal blood of either Amber or Chaos in "The Chronicles of Amber", who "move through shadows" to reach these worlds; the guardian families of "A Dark Traveling", who move between realities using high-tech devices; and Red Dorakeen in "Roadmarks", who reaches these worlds by driving along a magical highway.) Many of these same characters wonder whether they are creating these special places anew, or are merely finding places which already exist (very much like "the problem of universals" in classical metaphysics). Usually each character who ponders this ultimately decides that the question is purely academic and therefore unanswerable.


title: Roger Zelazny

text: Zelazny's stories inspired other authors in his generation including Samuel R. Delany, whose novel "Nova" and many of his short stories were written "partly in response to Zelazny’s eruption into the field." In 1967 Algis Budrys listed Zelazny, Delany, J. G. Ballard, and Brian W. Aldiss as "an earthshaking new kind of" writers, and leaders of the New Wave. Neil Gaiman said Zelazny was the author who influenced him the most, with this influence particularly seen in Gaiman's literary style and the topics he writes about. Andrzej Sapkowski considered Zelazny his spiritual teacher, whose work inspired him to write his first novel.


title: Roger Zelazny

text: The anthology "Lord of the Fantastic: Stories in Honor of Roger Zelazny", edited by Martin H. Greenberg, was released in 1998 and featured essays and stories in honor of Zelazny by Walter Jon Williams, Jack Williamson, John Varley, Gaiman, Gregory Benford and many other authors.


title: Roger Zelazny

text: The anthology "Shadows & Reflections: A Roger Zelazny Tribute Anthology", edited by Trent Zelazny and Warren Lapine, was released in 2017 and featured two essays and fifteen stories set in universes Zelazny created. Contributors included Zelazny, George R.R. Martin, Shannon Zelazny, Warren Lapine, Steven Brust, Kelly McCullough, Jane Lindskold, Steve Perry, Gerald Hausman, Lawrence Watt-Evans, Michael H. Hanson, Mark Rich, Gio Clairval, Edward J. McFadden III, Theodore Krulik, Shariann Lewitt, and Jay O'Connell.


title: Roger Zelazny

text: Zelazny won at least 16 awards for particular works of fiction: six Hugo Awards, three Nebula Awards, two Locus Awards, one Prix Tour-Apollo Award, two Seiun Awards, and two Balrog Awards – very often Zelazny's works competed with each other for the same award.


title: Roger Zelazny

text: In addition, Zelazny was the Worldcon Guest of Honor at Discon II in Washington, D.C. in 1974, and won an Inkpot Award for lifetime achievement at Comic-Con International in 1993. "A Rose for Ecclesiastes" was included in "Visions of Mars: First Library on Mars", a DVD taken on board the "Phoenix Mars Lander" in 2008.


title: Economic history of the United States

text: The economic history of the United States is about characteristics of and important developments in the U.S. economy from colonial times to the present. The emphasis is on productivity and economic performance and how the economy was affected by new technologies, the change of size in economic sectors and the effects of legislation and government policy. Specialized business history is covered in American business history.


title: Economic history of the United States

text: The colonial economy was characterized by an abundance of land and natural resources and a severe scarcity of labor. This was the opposite of Europe and attracted immigrants despite the high death rate caused by New World diseases.


title: Economic history of the United States

text: From 1700 to 1774 the output of the thirteen colonies increased 12-fold, giving the colonies an economy about 30% the size of Britain's at the time of independence. Population growth was responsible for over three-quarters of the economic growth of the British American colonies. The free white population had the highest standard of living in the world. There was very little change in productivity and little in the way of introduction of new goods and services.


title: Economic history of the United States

text: Under the mercantilist system Britain put restrictions on the products that could be made in the colonies and put restrictions on trade outside the British Empire.


title: Economic history of the United States

text: Initial colonization of North America was extremely difficult and most settlers before 1625 died in their first year. Settlers had to depend on what they could hunt and gather, what they brought with them, and uncertain shipments of food, tools, and supplies until they could build shelters and forts, clear land, and grow enough food, as well as build gristmills, sawmills, ironworks, and blacksmith shops to be self-supporting. They also had to defend themselves against raids from hostile Native Americans. After 1629 population growth was very rapid due to high birth rates (8 children per family versus 4 in Europe) and lower death rates than in Europe, in addition to immigration. The long life expectancy of the colonists was due to the abundant supplies of food and firewood and the low population density that limited the spread of infectious diseases. The death rate from diseases, especially malaria, was higher in the warm, humid Southern Colonies than in the cold New England Colonies.


title: Economic history of the United States

text: The higher birth rate was due to better employment opportunities. Many young adults in Europe delayed marriage for financial reasons, and many servants in Europe were not permitted to marry.


title: Economic history of the United States

text: The population of white settlers grew from an estimated 40,000 in 1650 to 235,000 in 1700. In 1690, there were an estimated 13,000 black slaves. The population grew at an annual rate of over 3% throughout the 18th century, doubling every 25 years or less. By 1775 the population had grown to 2.6 million, of which 2.1 million were white, 540,000 black and 50,000 Native American, giving the colonies about one-third of the population of Britain. The three most populated colonies in 1775 were Virginia, with a 21% share, and Pennsylvania and Massachusetts with 11% each.


title: Economic history of the United States

text: The colonial economy of what would become the United States was pre-industrial, primarily characterized by subsistence farming. Farm households also were engaged in handicraft production, mostly for home consumption, but with some goods sold, mainly gold.


title: Economic history of the United States

text: The market economy was based on extracting and processing natural resources and agricultural products for local consumption, such as mining, gristmills and sawmills, and the export of agricultural products. The most important agricultural exports were raw and processed feed grains (wheat, Indian corn, rice, bread and flour) and tobacco. Tobacco was a major crop in the Chesapeake Colonies and rice a major crop in South Carolina. Dried and salted fish was also a significant export. North Carolina was the leading producer of naval stores, which included turpentine (used for lamps), rosin (candles and soap), tar (rope and wood preservative) and pitch (ships' hulls). Another export was potash, which was derived from hardwood ashes and was used as a fertilizer and for making soap and glass.


title: Economic history of the United States

text: The colonies depended on Britain for many finished goods, partly because laws such as the Navigation Acts of 1660 prohibited making many types of finished goods in the colonies. These laws achieved the intended purpose of creating a trade surplus for Britain. The colonial balance of trade in goods heavily favored Britain; however, American shippers offset roughly half of the goods trade deficit with revenues earned by shipping between ports within the British Empire.


title: Economic history of the United States

text: The largest non-agricultural segment was ship building, which was from 5 to 20% of total employment. About 45% of American made ships were sold to foreigners.


title: Economic history of the United States

text: Exports and related services accounted for about one-sixth of income in the decade before revolution. Just before the revolution, tobacco was about a quarter of the value of exports. Also at the time of the revolution the colonies produced about 15% of world iron, although the value of exported iron was small compared to grains and tobacco. The mined American iron ores at that time were not large deposits and were not all of high quality; however, the huge forests provided adequate wood for making charcoal. Wood in Britain was becoming scarce and coke was beginning to be substituted for charcoal; however, coke made inferior iron. Britain encouraged colonial production of pig and bar iron, but banned construction of new colonial iron fabrication shops in 1750; however, the ban was mostly ignored by the colonists.


title: Economic history of the United States

text: Settlement was sparse during the colonial period and transportation was severely limited by lack of improved roads. Towns were located on or near the coasts or navigable inland waterways. Even on improved roads, which were rare during the colonial period, wagon transport was very expensive. Economical distance for transporting low value agricultural commodities to navigable waterways varied but was limited to something on the order of less than 25 miles. In the few small cities and among the larger plantations of South Carolina, and Virginia, some necessities and virtually all luxuries were imported in return for tobacco, rice, and indigo exports.


title: Economic history of the United States

text: By the 18th century, regional patterns of development had become clear: the New England colonies relied on shipbuilding and sailing to generate wealth; plantations (many using slave labor) in Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas grew tobacco, rice, and indigo; and the middle colonies of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware shipped general crops and furs. Except for slaves, standards of living were even higher than in England itself.


title: Economic history of the United States

text: The New England region's economy grew steadily over the entire colonial era, despite the lack of a staple crop that could be exported. All the provinces and many towns as well, tried to foster economic growth by subsidizing projects that improved the infrastructure, such as roads, bridges, inns and ferries. They gave bounties and subsidies or monopolies to sawmills, grist mills, iron mills, pulling mills (which treated cloth), salt works and glassworks. Most importantly, colonial legislatures set up a legal system that was conducive to business enterprise by resolving disputes, enforcing contracts, and protecting property rights. Hard work and entrepreneurship characterized the region, as the Puritans and Yankees endorsed the "Protestant Ethic", which enjoined men to work hard as part of their divine calling.


title: Economic history of the United States

text: The benefits of growth were widely distributed in New England, reaching from merchants to farmers to hired laborers. The rapidly growing population led to shortages of good farm land on which young families could establish themselves; one result was to delay marriage, and another was to move to new lands farther west. In the towns and cities, there was strong entrepreneurship, and a steady increase in the specialization of labor. Wages for men went up steadily before 1775; new occupations were opening for women, including weaving, teaching, and tailoring. The region bordered New France, and in the numerous wars the British poured money in to purchase supplies, build roads and pay colonial soldiers. The coastal ports began to specialize in fishing, international trade and shipbuilding—and after 1780 in whaling. Combined with growing urban markets for farm products, these factors allowed the economy to flourish despite the lack of technological innovation.


title: Economic history of the United States

text: The Connecticut economy began with subsistence farming in the 17th century, and developed with greater diversity and an increased focus on production for distant markets, especially the British colonies in the Caribbean. The American Revolution cut off imports from Britain, and stimulated a manufacturing sector that made heavy use of the entrepreneurship and mechanical skills of the people. In the second half of the 18th century, difficulties arose from the shortage of good farmland, periodic money problems, and downward price pressures in the export market. The colonial government from time to time attempted to promote various commodities such as hemp, potash, and lumber as export items to bolster its economy and improve its balance of trade with Great Britain.


title: Economic history of the United States

text: Historian Carl Bridenbaugh examined in depth five key cities: Boston (population 16,000 in 1760), Newport Rhode Island (population 7500), New York City (population 18,000), Philadelphia (population 23,000), and Charles Town (Charlestown, South Carolina), (population 8000). He argues they grew from small villages to take major leadership roles in promoting trade, land speculation, immigration, and prosperity, and in disseminating the ideas of the Enlightenment, and new methods in medicine and technology. Furthermore, they sponsored a consumer taste for English amenities, developed a distinctly American educational system, and began systems for care of people in need.


title: Economic history of the United States

text: On the eve of the Revolution, 95 percent of the American population lived outside the cities—much to the frustration of the British, who captured the cities with their Royal Navy, but lacked the manpower to occupy and subdue the countryside. In explaining the importance of the cities in shaping the American Revolution, Benjamin Carp compares the important role of waterfront workers, taverns, churches, kinship networks, and local politics. Historian Gary B. Nash emphasizes the role of the working class, and their distrust of their social superiors in northern ports. He argues that working class artisans and skilled craftsmen made up a radical element in Philadelphia that took control of the city starting about 1770 and promoted a radical Democratic form of government during the revolution. They held power for a while, and used their control of the local militia to disseminate their ideology to the working class, and to stay in power until the businessmen staged a conservative counterrevolution.


title: Economic history of the United States

text: The colonial economies of the world operated under the economic philosophy of mercantilism, a policy by which countries attempted to run a trade surplus, with their own colonies or other countries, to accumulate gold reserves. Colonies were used as suppliers of raw materials and as markets for manufactured goods while being prohibited from engaging in most types of manufacturing. The colonial powers of England, France, Spain and the Dutch Republic tried to protect their investments in colonial ventures by limiting trade between each other's colonies.


title: Economic history of the United States

text: The Spanish Empire clung to old style mercantilism, primarily concerned with enriching the Spanish government by accumulating gold and silver, mainly from mines in their colonies. The Dutch and particularly the British approach was more conducive to private business.


title: Economic history of the United States

text: The Navigation Acts, passed by the British Parliament between 1651 and 1673, affected the British American colonies.


title: Economic history of the United States

text: Although the Navigation Acts were enforced, they had a negligible effect on commerce and profitability of trade. In 1770 illegal exports and smuggling to the West Indies and Europe were about equal to exports to Britain.


title: Economic history of the United States

text: On the eve of independence Britain was in the early stage of the Industrial Revolution, with cottage industries and workshops providing finished goods for export to the colonies. At that time, half of the wrought iron, beaver hats, cordage, nails, linen, silk, and printed cotton produced in Britain were consumed by the British American colonies.


title: Economic history of the United States

text: The domestic economy of the British American colonies enjoyed a great deal of freedom, although some of their freedom was due to lack of enforcement of British regulations on commerce and industry. Adam Smith used the colonies as an example of the benefits of free enterprise. Colonists paid minimal taxes.


title: Economic history of the United States

text: Some colonies, such as Virginia, were founded principally as business ventures. England's success at establishing settlements on the North American coastline was due in large part to its use of charter companies. Charter companies were groups of stockholders (usually merchants and wealthy landowners) who sought personal economic gain and, perhaps, wanted also to advance England's national goals. While the private sector financed the companies, the king also provided each project with a charter or grant conferring economic rights as well as political and judicial authority. The colonies did not show profits, however, and the disappointed English investors often turned over their colonial charters to the settlers. The political implications, although not realized at the time, were enormous. The colonists were left to build their own governments and their own economy.


title: Economic history of the United States

text: Although the colonies provided an export market for finished goods made in Britain or sourced by British merchants and shipped from Britain, the British incurred the expenses of providing protection against piracy by the British Navy and other military expenses. An early tax became known as the Molasses Act of 1733.


title: Economic history of the United States

text: In the 1760s the London government raised small sums by new taxes on the colonies. This occasioned an enormous uproar, from which historians date the origins of the American Revolution. The issue was not the amount of the taxes—they were quite small—but rather the constitutional authority of Parliament versus the colonial assemblies to vote taxes. New taxes included the Sugar Act of 1764, the Stamp Act of 1765 and taxes on tea and other colonial imports. Historians have debated back and forth about the cost imposed by the Navigation Acts, which were less visible and rarely complained about. However, by 1795, the consensus view among economic historians and economists was that the "costs imposed on [American] colonists by the trade restrictions of the Navigation Acts were small."