Editing Jacques Offenbach (section)

====Texts and word setting====
[[File:Offenbach's-Librettists-and-successors.png|thumb|right|Librettists and successors (clockwise from top left) [[Ludovic Halévy]], [[Henri Meilhac]], [[Johann Strauss II]], [[Arthur Sullivan]]|alt=head shots of four 19th century white men with various degrees of facial hair]]
The first ideas for plots usually came from Offenbach, his librettists working along lines agreed with him. Lamb writes, "In this respect Offenbach was both well served and skilful at discovering talent. Like [[Arthur Sullivan|Sullivan]], and unlike [[Johann Strauss II]], he was consistently blessed with workable subjects and genuinely witty librettos."<ref name=grove/> In his setting of his librettists' words he took advantage of the rhythmic flexibility of the French language, and sometimes took this to extremes, forcing words into unnatural stresses.<ref>Hughes, p. 43</ref> Harding comments that he "wrought much violence on the French language".<ref name="Harding, p. 208"/> 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 {{lang|fr|La belle Hélène}}: {{lang|fr|"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."|italic=no}}{{refn|In English, "I am the husband of the queen" and "The bearded king who comes forward", in which the second syllables of {{lang|fr|"époux"|italic=no}} (husband) and {{lang|fr|"barbu"|italic=no}} (bearded) are nonsensically repeated. Lamb instances a variant of such wordplay in {{lang|fr|La Périchole}}:<poem style="margin-left: 1em;">
{{lang|fr|Aux maris ré,
Aux maris cal,
Aux maris ci,
Aux maris trants,
Aux maris récalcitrants.}}</poem> ("Husbands who are re– , husbands who are cal– , husbands who are ci– , husbands who are trant, husbands who are recalcitrant...")<ref name=grove/>|group= n}}