Ralph Benatzky was born in Moravské-Budejovice, Bohemia, on June 5,
1884. He acquired his musical training in Prague and with Felix Mottl in
Munich, after which he devoted himself to light music by composing
operettas. While residing at different periods in Vienna, Berlin, and
Switzerland, he wrote the scores for over ninety operettas and 250
motion pictures, besides producing about five thousand songs. His most
successful operettas were _The Laughing Triple Alliance_, _My Sister and
I_, _Love in the Snow_, _Axel at the Gates of Heaven_, and _The White
Horse Inn_. He came to live in the United States in 1940, but after
World War II returned to Europe. He died in Zurich on October 17, 1957.
_The White Horse Inn_ (_Im weissen Roess’l_) is not only Benatzky’s most
celebrated operetta, but also one of the most successful produced in
Europe between the two world wars, and possibly the last of the great
European operettas. It was first performed in Berlin in 1930, after
which it enjoyed over a thousand performances in Europe. Its première in
America in 1936 (the book was adapted by David Freedman, lyrics were by
Irving Caesar, William Gaxton and Kitty Carlisle starred) was only a
moderate success. The operetta book of the original—freely adapted by
Erik Charell and Hans Mueller, from a play by Blumenthal and
Kadelburg—is set in the delightful resort of St. Wolfgang on Wolfgangsee
in Austria, in the era just before World War I. Leopold, headwaiter of
_The White Horse Inn_, is in love with its owner, Frau Josepha, who
favors the lawyer, Siedler. In a fit of temper she fires Leopold, but
upon learning that Emperor Franz Josef is about to pay the inn a visit,
she prevails upon him to stay on. Leopold makes a welcoming speech to
the Emperor, during which his bitter resentment against Frau Josepha
gets the upper hand. Later on, when Frau Josepha confides to the Emperor
that she is in love with Siedler, he urges her to consider Leopold for a
husband. Leopold then comes to Josepha with a letter of resignation,
which she accepts, but only because she is now ready to give him a new
position, as her husband.
Selections from this tuneful operetta include the main love song, “_Es
muss ein wunderbares sein_,” the ditty “_Zuschau’n kann ich nicht_,” and
the lively waltz, “_Im weissen Roess’l am Wolfgangsee_.”
It is mainly the worldwide popularity of this operetta (even more than
the natural beauty of Wolfgangsee) that brings tourists each year to the
White Horse Inn at St. Wolfgang, for a sight of the operetta’s setting,
and to partake of refreshments on the attractive veranda overlooking
Wolfgangsee. The inn is now generously decorated with pictures in which
the two main songs of the operetta are quoted, supplemented by a
portrait of Benatzky. Souvenir ashtrays also carry musical quotations
from the operetta.