At the turn of the year, the State Opera dedicates a festive concert to the great master of Viennese operetta: Franz Lehár. Between melodiousness and subtle melancholy, the magic of his works unfolds, which not only made music history with The Merry Widow, but also with later masterpieces such as Paganini, Friederike and Giuditta. Lehár's artful approach to grand opera lends the evening a festive glow - a stylish end to the old year and a promising start to the new one.
With Franz Lehár, Viennese operetta experienced a noticeable upswing in the first decades of the 20th century. The new heyday of the genre, which became known as the "Silver Age", is not only due to the particularly popular Merry Widow, but also to Lehár's late operettas from the 1920s and early 1930s, in which he consciously approached grand opera. These works are ambitious and sophisticated, often featuring prominent figures from cultural history, such as the "devil's violinist" Niccolò Paganini or the "prince of poets" Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (in the operetta Friederike). And with Giuditta, described as a "musical comedy", he even celebrated a premiere at the Vienna State Opera. Melodiousness and melancholy are combined in Lehár's music in a peculiar, fascinating way.
December 31, 2025
