Born Leo Rosenstein in what was Lemberg* in Austria-Hungary, now Lviv in the Ukraine, he changed his name to Stein, studied law and moved to Vienna. There he took an office job while writing lyrics and collaborated with Victor León on a number of works including The Merry Widow. Much admired for his conscientious work and soundly constructed librettos, he also wrote for Kálmán and others.

*Typical of the geography of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth, this city which had a large Jewish ghetto, became part of Poland in 1919, then of the USSR in 1945 and, finally, of the Ukraine in 1991.

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Revised May 2009
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