Jean Gilbert

Jean Gilbert, born Max Winterfeld on 11 February 1879 in Hamburg, Germany, was a composer, conductor, and book writer whose work spanned operetta, musical theater, and Broadway. He died on 20 December 1942 in Buenos Aires. His family background was rooted in music; his ancestors served as cantors of the Jewish community, and his cousin Paul Dessau went on to become a noted composer and conductor.

Gilbert received formal training at the conservatories in Sondershausen and Weimar, and also attended composition lessons with Philipp Scharwenka in Berlin. His early professional life began as a pianist before he secured a position as Kapellmeister in Bremerhaven at the age of eighteen. He subsequently joined the Carl Schultze Theater in Hamburg, and by the age of twenty had succeeded Leo Fall as musical director of the Centralhalle theatre on Hamburg's Reeperbahn. He later worked as Kapellmeister at the Berlin Apollo-Theater on Friedrichstraße, where he conducted operettas by Paul Lincke.

He adopted the stage name Jean Gilbert for his first operetta, Das Jungfernstift, produced in 1901 in Hamburg. In 1908 he relocated to Düsseldorf and returned to composing, and by 1910 was back in Berlin, where he went on to compose more than fifty operettas before and after World War I. His most celebrated work was Die keusche Susanne, composed in 1910 in Magdeburg, which also found success in an English-language adaptation titled The Girl in the Taxi. Other notable works from this period include Autoliebchen and Puppchen, both produced in Berlin in 1912, Die Kino-Königin in 1913, and Die Frau im Hermelin in Berlin in 1919. Later works included Katja, die Tänzerin and Das Weib in Purpur, both produced in Vienna in 1923, Annemarie in Berlin in 1925, and Yvonne in London in 1926, the latter written with Vernon Duke. His final listed stage work, Hotel Stadt Lemberg, premiered in Hamburg in 1929.

Gilbert's Broadway credits include the musicals A Modern Eve, The Queen of the Movies, The Lady in Ermine, Modest Suzanne, and Marching By. The Queen of the Movies was an adaptation of his 1913 work Die Kino-Königin, and The Lady in Ermine derived from Die Frau im Hermelin. His Broadway work encompassed both composition and book writing.

Following the Nazi seizure of power in January 1933, Gilbert, as a Jew, was compelled to leave Germany. He emigrated first to Madrid and later to Argentina, where he worked again as a radio orchestra leader. He died in Buenos Aires. His elder son Robert Gilbert, born in 1899 and died in 1978, was also a composer, while his younger son Henry Winterfeld, born in 1901 and died in 1990, became a well-known author of books for young readers.