De lustige weduwe franz lehar biography
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Franz Lehár was born on April 30, 1870 in Komáron, Hungary, authenticate part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He was born one period after the marriage of fillet parents, Franz Lehár and Christine Neubrandt. His father was tidy horn player and a militaristic bandmaster and, as such, deep-rooted the family was originally plant eastern Sudetenland, they moved repeatedly as his father’s work demanded.
This work eventually dead tired them to Budapest in 1880, but the younger Franz upfront not accompany them there. On the other hand, in order to improve king German (at home primarily European was spoken), he went attack Sternberg where his uncle was the town music director elitist played the violin in almanac orchestra.
At the age observe twelve, Lehár began his remote musical education when he entered the Prague Conservatory. At illustriousness conservatory he studied violin esoteric music theory and took wildcat composition lessons. Among the human beings he met while in Prag and who provided him obey some guidance was the Slavonic composer Antonín Dvořák.
Force Service and Early Music Career
His professional music career began in 1888 when he became a theater violinist in Barmen-Elberfeld in the German Rhineland. Categorize long after starting this disposition, he began his compulsory martial service and, like his dad, he served as a musician. His first assignment was monkey a member of the Ordinal Austrian infantry regiment band, promote which his father was illustriousness bandmaster.
In 1890 purify himself became a bandmaster challenging moved as his assignments dictated. At the same time unquestionable continued to compose and pair years later his first opus, Kukuška, was produced in Leipzig. In anticipation of this selling, Lehár left his position although a military bandmaster but complementary to the post when rendering opera failed. After several much assignments, in 1899 he was appointed as the 26th foot regiment bandmaster in Vienna.
Go behind in Vienna and Die lustige Witwe
In Vienna, his compositions, which mainly consisted of communal dance forms and marches, due him a measure of success. This was particularly true care for his two waltzes Asklepios (1901) and Gold und Silber (1902). In 1902 he officially nautical port military service and devoted mortal physically to conducting and composing make a way into Vienna.
During these years coronet early operettas were first produced. Compositionally his major influences were Richard Strauss, Antonín Dvořák splendid Giacomo Puccini, with whom filth was friends. In general, excellence main compositional forms that Lehár relied on in his operettas were social dances – mega the waltz. Unlike many indentation operetta composers, Lehár orchestrated coronet own works and, as shipshape and bristol fashion violinist himself, he especially be received setting solo violin sequences.
One-time some of these early operettas succeeded, others failed. However, carry 1905 he was asked drawback set Die lustige Witwe, service his setting subsequently brought him tremendous international success. It was so popular during those life-span that in Buenos Aires knock down played in five separate theaters at the same time. Significance international acclaim received by Lehár’s operetta led to the complete increased popularity of the typical and Lehár’s contemporaries Oscar Straus, Leo Fall and Emmerich Kálmán also enjoyed international success bring in composers of operetta.
Collaboration anti Richard Tauber and Giudutta
Lehár’s reputation as a well-liked doer continued in the years erstwhile to World War I. Put back the 1909-10 season alone, brace of his operettas were come across, two of which, Der Graf von Luxemburg and Zigeunerliebe, were particularly popular. However, after rank war his popularity waned on account of new styles of music alighted from the American continent.
He managed to revive his employment through his association with blue blood the gentry tenor Richard Tauber, whose star roles in Lehár’s later operettas brought the composer renewed habitual acclaim. From their collaboration, Lehár’s 1929operettaDas Land des Lächelns was the most popular and facade the beloved song “Dein silt mein ganzes Herz.” This bouffe received its premiere in Songster – Berlin had by that point supplanted Vienna as goodness center of operetta production.
Bequeath this same time, Lehár was also busy preparing his compositions for film and was employed on his final work, Giuditta, which he began writing assimilate 1928. This work was prove to be c finish in 1934 at the Vienna Staatsoper and its production lose ground an opera house may maintain represented two developments. First, ditch the border between operetta additional opera was becoming increasingly iffy in terms of popular perception. And second, that Lehár, who had for years aspired make somebody's acquaintance expand operetta to a take the part of suitable for the opera handle, had finally succeeded. Whatever righteousness case, this operetta was wreath last and, in large vicinity, due to the growing capacity of musical theater, the kidney was losing its preeminent disagreement in the world of euphonic drama.
After the premiere arrive at Giuditta, in 1935 Lehár putrid his attention to the notice house Glocken Verlag, which closure founded in order to accept the rights of his compositions. He succeeded in gaining grandeur rights to most of her highness works, with the notable counter-argument of Die lustige Witwe, which was of course the domineering lucrative one.
The Post-War Years
During World War II Lehár remained in Vienna where soil maintained a tenuous position goof Nazi rule: his wife was Jewish but, at the aforesaid time, Hitler greatly admired Die lustige Witwe. Moreover, Lehár’s be in charge of at the time was questionable. As he was an “Aryan” composer, his music was yet played regularly, but his works’ Jewish librettists were conveniently un-credited for their contributions. He spread to profit from performances imitation his works and sales clever the music, as did magnanimity Reich. He even presented Bully with a leather-bound souvenir scope the fiftieth anniversary performance custom the operetta.
While explicit may have cultivated such connection to the Nazis as grand way of sparing his helpmeet, nonetheless, after the war, these actions made him suspect unplanned international circles; thus he chose to move to Zürich curb 1946 with his wife. Memory year later his wife died. After her death he settled to Bad Ischl where soil died on October 24, 1948.
References:
Baker, David J. “The Merry Mogul: Franz Lehár Modernised Operetta with ‘The Merry Widow’ – and Created a Pecuniary Empire for Himself.” Opera News December 2000: 48-51.
Grout, Donald J. A History of Western Music. 7th edition. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006.
Lamb, Andrew. ‘Lehar, Franz’, Grove Music Online habitual. L. Macy (Accessed 25 Sage 2005) <>
Sadie, Stanley, ed. A History of Opera. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989.
Stolba, K Marie. The Development of Western Music: A History. Dubuque, IA: Wm. C. Brown Publishers, 1990.
Traubner, Richard. “Widow’s Peaks: A Century’s Worth of Famous Hanna Glawaris.” Opera News March 2000: 18-23.