![]() Lehár stayed in Austria during the Second World War, refusing to involve himself with politics but benefitting financially from Hitler’s promotion of The Merry Widow. His grand opera, Giuditta (1934), was well-received, but failed to reach the heights of The Merry Widow and Lehár did not write any new serious works after this operetta was already falling out of favour. Lehár found renewed success after the First World War when he began to write for Austrian tenor Richard Tauber. Lehár’s works in the next few years include Zigeunerliebe ( Gypsy Love) and the 1916 operetta Die Sterngucker ( The Stargazer), written with librettist Fritz Löhner-Beda. Some musicologists have argued that this was partly because The Merry Widow had fortuitously appeared just after the previous generation of operetta composers had died. The work was an international success – and a personal financial success for Lehár, though he was unable to repeat the phenomenon. Lehár used waltz music, traditional Eastern European folk and the Parisian cancan to revitalise the operetta as a genre. The Merry Widow was immediately successful in Vienna, ushering in a new era of Viennese operetta. In 1905 he was asked to write the music for The Merry Widow to a German libretto by Viktor Léon and Leo Stein and based on a 1861 French comedy play by Henri Meilhac. His operetta Kukuška was not received particularly well at its premiere in Leipzig in 1896, and Lehár moved to Vienna shortly thereafter. His early output includes dances, marches and operettas. ![]() He studied the violin from a young age and entered the Prague Conservatory at age twelve, where he was encouraged by Antonín Dvořák to pursue composition. The Merry Widow is still popular worldwide.įranz Lehár was born in Komárom, Hungary (now Komárno, Slovakia) into a musical family. Lehár and his operetta remain untarnished by their association with Hitler, largely because the composer kept a low profile during the war and died shortly afterwards. ![]() Hitler referred to the operetta as ‘the equal of the finest opera,’ and it is rumoured to be the only piece of music the dictator would play during the last two years of the war. Franz Lehár (1870-1948) and The Merry WidowĪustro-Hungarian composer Franz Lehár is famous for his operetta Die lustige Witwe ( The Merry Widow), one of the most beloved and long-lasting works in its genre. ![]()
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