THOUGH there were antecedents of operetta in countries other than France, it took the French to refine the form—first in the short, oneact works which were as much an extension of the vaudeville as a corruption of the opéra-comique and later in the full-length, usually three-act opéras-bouffes. These were invariably more ambitious musically than their shorter relatives.
The term opérette had been used before 1850, and there were composers who were writing short comic scenes or sketches before the advent of Hervé, but none of these was of more than passing interest, and their composers' names are generally forgotten. Offenbach is considered the father of French operetta—but so is Hervé. Both should be given credit. One can oversimplify the truth by saying that Hervé sired the short French operetta (though none of Hervé's short works are heard today), while the short operetta, brought to a high level by Offenbach (whose one-act works are still done today), was developed by Offenbach into the longer operetta.
Hervé's later, full-length operettas, resting on the scaffolding created by Offenbach and his librettists, became immensely popular when Offenbach's career was just about to begin its decline in the late 1860s. For many years, the two composers were rivals, often bitter ones. And, late in Hervé's career, years after Offenbach's death, Hervé wrote his one operetta still performed regularly today, Mam'zelle Nitouche (1883).
If there is no disputing the musical superiority of Offenbach over Hervé, one can still give Hervé the palm for his zany libretti and the spirit of inanity so much a part of the first operettas.