LEHÁR AND THE MERRY WIDOW

Lehár began searching for a new subject, making it plain he was interested in a vehicle showing real human beings and not an Offenbach-type burlesque.

Meanwhile Leo Stein had read the play L'Attaché d'Ambassade (1861) by Henri Meilhac*, saw its potential for operetta with its witty dialogue, and took it to Victor León, the librettist for Lehár's The Tinker (Der Rastelbinder). It was popular allover Europe and had already had over one hundred successful performances in Vienna. It is about a rich young widow, Madeleine von Palmé, engaged to a young attaché, a match made by the Ambassador so that her native country, a small German duchy, could keep her fortune. They kept the basic plot but changed the names of the characters. The country became a small Balkan state, a thinly disguised Montenegro**. They also introduced the previous romance between Hanna and Danilo. The result was The Merry Widow. (The French copyright was ignored and no mention was made of Meilhac. A French suit was settled by the Viennese paying the French a share of the royalties and the French acknowledging the 'artistic independence' of the operetta book.)

León and Stein wanted the well-known, established composer Richard Heuberger to write the music for the book they had prepared from The Attaché, but when they received his first act they were dissatisfied, thinking it uninspired. The manager of the Theater an der Wien, Emil Steininger, suggested they approach the new-comer Lehár. León at first rejected the idea. (While The Tinker had been a success, Lehár's next work was a flop. However, they invited him to submit music for one number, "Dummer, dummer Reitersmann" usually translated as "Silly, silly cavalier". He sat up all one night, and the next morning played it to León over the telephone and won the assignment.

After finishing a draft of the score, Lehár played it for some of the singers, the librettists and the directors of the Theater an der Wien. The singers loved, but Karczag, one of the managers, thought the score, with its sensuous melodies, strange and more like Puccini than traditional operettas.

The rehearsals did not go well. Only a few were scheduled because the to be spent on a work not expected to last very long. Most of the scenery and costumes were from the storehouse. To brighten the resulting shabby set, León himself bought all the paper lanterns he could find and they became a superstitious tradition in later productions. Danilo's costume was copied from a picture of Crown Prince Danilo of Montenegro.

The important critic Karpath was denied admission to the dress rehearsal by the management because they thought it poor and only a temporary thing until they could rehearse something better. However, he was finally allowed to sit in a dark corner. After the first act he announced that what he had heard was excellent, and he was moved to the front where he shouted "Bravo"; all became more confident and León predicted a run of forty performances.

December 30, the night of the opening and the night before New Year's Eve, is traditionally the worst night of the season. The first reviews were favorable but the audiences were small. Withdrawal was considered. However, complementary tickets were given out, it gained in popularity and soon played to sold-out houses. Before long the music was heard all over Vienna. It was given a new production with the stipulation that the paper lanterns stayed.. There were over 400 performances in Vienna, ten time's León's prediction, and The Merry Widow soon conquered London, New York, Paris, Moscow, Milan, and other cities. At one time five different productions played at once in Buenos Aires. Adolf Hitler saw it from the cheap seats at the Theater and der Wien in October 1907 when trying in vain to get into the Vienna Academy of Art. He went many times and after the Anschluss treated Lehár with special consideration.

There was a Merry Widow craze in New York with hats, corsets, dogs, cigars, chocolates, perfumes, scallops, liqueurs, et cetera all named for it. Alan Jay Lerner claimed he played the music once a month. The waltz is arguably the most famous one not written by Johann Strauss II. The Merry Widow made Lehár a multi-millionaire and is high on the list of all time favorites.

There were unauthorized silent movie versions as early as 1907. In 1925 there was a lavish silent production by Erich von Stroheim with John Gilbert and Mae Murray. Hanna became Sally, an American chorine. Others include the 1937 Ernst Lubitsch version with Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette Macdonald. This was more like the original but the time was changed to about 1885 and most of the music was left out. New lyrics by Lorenz Hart were added! The 1952 Curtis Berhardt production with Lana Turner and Fernando Lamas is in color but has been judged dull.

* Henri Meilhac (1831-1897) was born in Paris and, at first, worked as a bookseller. He was attracted to writing, drew caricatures for several humorous journals, and then wrote pieces for the theatre. For over twenty years, he collaborated with Ludovic Halévy on opéra-comique libretti. Together they turned out more than seventy-five librettos, one of which was the source for Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus.

** Montenegro is a small Balkan country just north of Albania, roughly corresponding to the fourteenth and fifteenth century Principality of Zeta. In 1905, when The Merry Widow was written, it was independent, i.e. not part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1919 it became part of Yugoslavia. On June 3, 2006 is regained its independence and on June 22 became the 192nd member of The United Nations. While now a republic, it still has a 'titular king' who is also the Grand Master of the Order of Danilo I. (The present royal house was founded by Danilo Petrovich-Njegus.) When The Merry Widow appeared, the Montenegrin Embassy in Vienna protested against the use of these names. Crown Prince Danilo did not object.

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Revised September 2006
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