The Merry
Widow is an operetta by the Austro-Hungarian composer Franz Lehar. The
librettists, Leo Stein, Viktor Leon, based the story – relating a rich widow,
and her countrymen’s trying to keep her money in the principality by getting
her the right husband – on an 1861 comedy play, L’attache d’ambassade by Henri
Meilhac.
The operatta
has taken pleasure in extraordinary international success since its 1905
premiere in Vienna and carries on to be regularly accepted and recorded. Film
and other adaptation have also been made. Well-known music from the score
comprises the “Vilja Song”, “Da geh’ ich zu Maxim”, and the “Merry Widow
Waltz”.
