Barbier pursued a career in literary studies at Bourges College, while taking lessons in solfège, piano, harmony and counterpoint with Henry Darondeau, an organist in one of the churches of the city.
In 1852, Frédéric Barbier had already written and presented in Bourges a small one-act opéra comique, Le Mariage de Colombine, but considered moving to Paris.
Thanks to his advice and lessons of the latter, his first work Une Nuit à Séville,a one-act opéra comique, was played at the Théâtre Lyrique on 14 September 1855 and was warmly welcomed.
Within 20 years, Barbier had over sixty more or less important works presented in every small opera house of Paris and in cafés-chantant, most of them in one act and approaching more and more the genre of comic operettas.
He composed for the Eldorado, the Alcazar, the Ba-ta-clan, the Folies-Belleville, the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, etc., a great many number of operettas, saynètes, pantomimes and ballets.