Franz Lehár was born in Komorn, Hungary, on April 30, 1870. His father,
a bandmaster, was his first music teacher. When Franz was twelve, he
entered the Prague Conservatory where he remained six years specializing
in the violin with Bennewitz and theory with Foerster. His studies were
completed in 1888, after which he played the violin in the orchestra of
the Eberfeld Opera. He subsequently became an assistant bandleader of
his father’s ensemble and a director of Austria’s foremost Marine bands.
In 1896 he realized his first success as a composer of operettas with
_Kukuschka_, produced in Leipzig. In 1902 he became conductor of the
Theater-an-der-Wien, in Vienna, home of operettas. There, in the same
year, he had produced _Viennese Women_ (_Wiener Frauen_). The operetta
after that was _The Gypsy_ (_Der Rastelbinder_), seen in 1902 in one of
Vienna’s other theaters. With _The Merry Widow_ (_Die lustige Witwe_),
seen in 1905, Lehár achieved a triumph of such magnitude that from then
on he was one of Austria’s most celebrated operetta composers (and one
of the wealthiest) since Johann Strauss II. He wrote about thirty more
operettas (three of them in the single year of 1909-1910). The most
famous were _The Count of Luxembourg_ (_Der Graf von Luxemburg_) in
1909; _Gypsy Love_ (_Zigeunerliebe_) in 1910; _Frasquita_ in 1922;
_Paganini_ in 1925; _The Tsarevitch_ (_Der Zarewitsch_) in 1927; and
_The Land of Smiles_ (_Das Land des Laechelns_) in 1929. During World
War II Lehár lived in seclusion at his villa in Bad Ischl, Austria.
After the war he became embittered by the widely publicized accusation
that he had been pro Nazi, arising no doubt from the well-known fact
that _The Merry Widow_ was Hitler’s favorite operetta. What was
forgotten in this attack against Lehár was the fact that his wife had
been classified by Nazis as non-Aryan and that on one occasion both and
he and his wife were subjected by the Gestapo to house arrest. Lehár
died in Bad Ischl, Austria, on October 24, 1948. He is one of the few
composers to outlive the copyrights of some of his most famous works.
Lehár’s popularity in the early part of this century gave the Viennese
operetta a new lease on life at a time when its heyday was believed
over. It was through the influence of Lehár’s immense popularity and
success that composers like Oscar Straus, Emmerich Kálmán, and Leo Fall
began writing their own operettas. Lehár’s best stage works have been
described as “dance operettas” because of the emphasis placed on dance
music, the waltz specifically. The dance usually becomes the climax, the
focal point, of the production. Stan Czech further points out that
Lehár’s waltzes are “slower and sweeter than those of Johann Strauss,
were definite prototypes of the modern slow waltz, and their Slav
atmosphere gave them an exciting and individual character.”
_The Count of Luxembourg_ (_Der Graf von Luxemburg_)—text by Willner and
Robert Bodanzky—was first given in Vienna on November 12, 1909. This
operetta opens in an artist’s studio in Paris where René, the
impoverished Count of Luxembourg, is offered five hundred thousand
francs by Prince Basil if René is willing to marry the singer Angele and
let her share his title. The reason for this peculiar arrangement is
that the Prince is himself in love with Angele, wants to marry her, but
prefers that his wife have a title. After they get married, René and
Angele discover they are in love with each other, a fact which
eventually the Prince is willing to accept since he is ordered by the
Czar to marry a legitimate Countess. As in most Lehár’s operettas, the
high musical moment comes with a waltz—the infectious duet of René and
Angele, “_Bist du’s, lachendes Glueck_,” which is also extremely popular
in orchestral adaptations. Other appealing numbers are the second act
duet, “_Lieber Freund, man greift nicht_” and the tenor aria, “_Maedel
klein, Maedel fein_.”
_Frasquita_, produced in Vienna on May 12, 1922, is remembered most
often for one of Lehár’s most beautiful vocal numbers, the nostalgic and
romantic _Frasquita Serenade_, “_Hab ein blaues Himmelbett_.” Fritz
Kreisler made a fine transcription for violin and piano, and Sigmund
Spaeth provided the melody with American lyrics.
_Gypsy Love_ (_Zigeunerliebe_), had its world première in Vienna on
January 8, 1910. The librettists (Willner and Bodanzky) provided a
romantic storybook setting of Rumania, and a romantic central character
in the form of the gypsy violinist, Jozsi. Zorika is ineluctably drawn
to Jozsi though she is actually betrothed to his half-brother, Jonel. In
a dream, she gets a foretaste of what her life would be with one so
irresponsible and fickle as a gypsy violinist, with the result that she
is more than happy to marry Jonel. The main waltz melody (one of Lehár’s
greatest) is “_Nur der Liebe macht uns jung_” and the most infectious
Hungarian tune is Jozsi’s soaring entrance gypsy melody to the
accompaniment of his violin, “_Ich bin ein Zigeunerkind_.”
From _The Land of Smiles_ (_Das Land des Laechelns_) comes what is
probably the best loved and most widely sung of all of Lehár’s vocal
numbers, “Dein ist mein ganzes Herz” (“Thine Is My Heart Alone”) which
opened not in Vienna but in Berlin, on October 10, 1929. This was
actually a new version of an old Lehár operetta, originally called _The
Yellow Jacket_ (_Die gelbe Jacke_) which had been introduced in Vienna
in 1923. The romantic plot of both operettas involved a Chinese
diplomat, Prince Sou-Chong, and Lisa, daughter of an Austrian Count.
They marry and settle in Peking in whose strange setting, Lisa’s love
for the Prince soon turns to hate. With great magnanimity—even though
this is in violation of ancient Chinese traditions and customs—he allows
Lisa to leave him and return home.
In _The Yellow Jacket_, “Thine Is My Heart Alone” is sung by Lisa, and
at that time this number made little impression. The famous tenor,
Richard Tauber, fell in love with it, and performed it so extensively in
his recitals everywhere that he and the song became inextricably
identified. When Lehár revised his operetta and renamed it _The Land of
Smiles_, he cast the song “Thine Is My Heart Alone” as a major
second-act aria for Prince Sou-Chong, Richard Tauber playing the part of
the Prince. _The Land of Smiles_ was a personal triumph for Tauber who
appeared in it over 2,500 times all over the world. “Thine Is My Heart
Alone” became with him something of a theme song. He rarely gave a
concert anywhere without singing it either on the program itself or as
an encore. When _The Land of Smiles_ was given in New York City in 1946,
with Tauber as the star, the operetta was renamed _Yours Is My Heart_;
in this production Tauber sang the song four times in four different
languages, French, Italian, German, and English.
There can be little question but that _The Merry Widow_ (_Die lustige
Witwe_) is one of the most famous operettas ever written. It was a
sensation when first performed, in Vienna on December 28, 1905. It came
both to London and New York in 1907, a major success in both places. In
Buenos Aires it was performed simultaneously in five theaters in five
different languages. Since 1907 there was hardly a time when _The Merry
Widow_ was not being performed in some part of the world. It has enjoyed
in excess of six thousand performances, a thousand of these in Vienna
alone. On several occasions it has been adapted for the screen.
Victor Léon and Leo Stein wrote the text. This is the usual operetta
material involving a beautiful heiress from a mythical kingdom. She is
Sonia from Marsovia, who is leading a gay life in Paris. Beautiful and
wealthy, she is inevitably sought out by the most handsome men of Paris.
The government of Marsovia is eager to get her to marry one of its
native sons, the dashing Prince Danilo, thereby keeping her fortune at
home. As she conducts her vivacious night life she is zealously watched
over by the Marsovian Ambassador, Baron Popoff, who never loses an
opportunity to further the interests of Danilo. Eventually, Sonia has
had her fling and is ready to settle down with the Prince.
The _Merry Widow Waltz_, “_S’fluestern Geigen, Lippen schweigen_,” an
eye-filling climax to the third act, is not only the most popular
excerpt from this operetta but also one of the most celebrated waltzes
ever written. A secondary waltz, “Vilia” is also highly beguiling, while
a third musical favorite from this score is “_Da geh’ ich zu Maxim_”
(“_The Girl at Maxim’s_”).
What is one of Lehár’s best waltzes, second in popularity only to that
of _The Merry Widow_, does not come from any operetta. It is the _Gold
and Silver Waltzes_ (_Gold und Silber Waelzer_), op. 79 which he wrote
as a concert number.