Music

Offenbach, the first postmodern

LONG-FORM ARTICLE, Jean-David Ponci | If modernity began during the Renaissance with the rediscovery of the ancient heritage, postmodernity may well have begun with the relativization of that heritage. Offenbach was thus the first to dare to bring the gods of Olympus to the stage in order to mock them. But there is never any gratuitous audacity in his work. His works reveal a comprehensive agenda of challenging the establishment: he explores sexual liberation and women’s emancipation. He mocks military might, questions the legitimacy of political power, and exposes the ridiculous aspects of bourgeois love… One might get the impression that he was nothing more than a street performer. In fact, humor was the only medium that allowed him to say what he would never have been allowed to express in a genre more serious than operetta.

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