Lehár, Franz (1870 - 1948)

Franz Lehár was born on April 30, 1870 in the Hungarian town of Komárom into a family of military musicians. He studied for six years in Prague, and by the time he died on October 24, 1948 in Bad Ischl, had lived through all of the political and cultural convulsions of the first half of the twentieth century. The diversity of his oeuvre ranges from military music to operetta and opera. His works have to be understood against the background of the atmosphere of his time, during which the public sought entertainment and diversion. Lehár’s most famous works are The Merry Widow, Land of Smiles, Paganini and The Tsarevich.