It has since been adapted and translated into several different languages, and staged all over the world. The Merry Widow, or Die lustige Witwe in German, premiered in Vienna in 1905, and went onto a successful run of 483 performances. Lehár wasn’t even the first composer that they approached – he was the second – but once the librettists were convinced by his ability to create an authentic Parisian atmosphere, the score only took a few months to complete. The Merry Widow was the brainchild of original librettists Leo Stein and Viktor Léon, who had come across a play named L’attaché d’ambassade and thought it would make a good operetta.
Unlike the composition of many operas, Lehár was brought on board fairly late in the day. The Merry Widow was his biggest success, although ‘Dein ist mein ganzes Herz!’ (‘You are my heart’s delight’) from The Land of Smiles has also become a standard in its own right. The Merry Widow was written by Austro-Hungarian composer Franz Lehár (1870–1948).
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