Biography
Jean Gilbert, born Max Winterfeld, was born on 11 February 1879 in Hamburg and trained as a pianist at the Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory in Berlin. From 1897 he worked as a theatre conductor, including for Hagenbeck's circus orchestra and Berlin's Apollo-Varieté, before composing his own operettas from 1901 under the stage name Jean Gilbert. "Die keusche Susanne" brought him international breakthrough in 1910 and took him to Berlin as a freelance composer; he went on to write around fifty stage works and became a defining figure of the "Berlin operetta". As a Jew he was forced to flee the Nazis in April 1933, emigrating via Austria, Spain, France and Britain before settling in Buenos Aires in 1939, where he led a radio orchestra until his death on 20 December 1942.
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