With the possible exception of Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus, Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow is the best known of all Viennese operettas. The score overflows with melodies—not just waltzes, but can-cans, marches, and mazurkas—and the plot is a perfect mix of fun and slightly bittersweet romance. And, in the end, at least one pair of lovers is both wiser and happier.

Hanna, the "merry widow" of the title, provides the sole economic support for the fictional country of Pontevedro by way of an inheritance from her wealthy old husband. The Pontevedro legation in Paris is desperate at the thought that Hanna will marry again—a Frenchman, no less—and persuades Danilo, an old Pontevedran flame of hers, to try and woo her. Hanna is of course fully aware that her suitors are after her money; however, after various complications, Hanna and Danilo discover that they are truly in love with one another and are reunited.

The operetta's two most famous numbers are Hanna's "Vilja-lied" (a song about a woodland sprite), and the "Merry Widow Waltz." Like the operetta itself, both numbers are deceptively simple, combining guilelessness and exquisite craftsmanship in a manner that well explains their enduring popularity.

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Lippen schweigen (Lips Stay Silent) (from "Die lustige Witwe")

Franz Lehár worked with librettists Leo Stein and Victor Leon to produce his greatest success, Die lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow). Naturally this 1905 operetta yielded several popular numbers, including this one, Lippen Schweigen (Lips Stay Silent). Coming near the end of the operetta, this duet is probably the work's most famous number, having now appeared on countless recordings that have typically featured some of the world's most popular singers, including Plácido Domingo, Renée Fleming, and Richard Tauber, to name just a few.

The song is written in waltz tempo and is sung by the story's two lovers, Danilo (tenor) and Hanna (soprano). After an intimate introduction from solo strings, Danilo sings the title words to the sweetly tender main theme. It has a serene, mellow character at the outset in its romantic warmth, but then turns passionate as the melody line rises higher. Hanna sings the next verse ("Bei jedem Walzerschritt"), her music comparatively subdued, but meltingly beautiful and demurely playful. The orchestra then takes up the lovely theme in gentle tones, but Danilo and Hanna finish it, heightening the passion heard earlier and milking the music for all its beauty and sense of youthful ecstasy. This duet finds Lehár at his most charming and imaginative, even if it divulges strains of the waltz king, Johann Strauss II.

© Robert Cummings, Rovi

Vilja-Lied ("Es lebt eine Vilja") (from "Die lustige Witwe")

Die lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow) created a rather quiet revolution in the genre of light opera, or operetta. With book and lyrics by Leo Stein and Victor Leon, it helped usher in an era in which operettas were taken more seriously and in which Lehár's own later efforts would begin to veer toward a more Puccinian world of drama. But Die lustige Witwe was (and is) immensely popular, too, largely because of its songs. Vilja-Lied is among its most memorable numbers.

This famous aria comes early in the second act and is sung by the female lead, Hanna, and the chorus. In it she tells the story of the Vilja, a mountain nymph in the fictional European land of Pontevedria, who beguiles a hunter with her ravishing beauty. The aria features consistently attractive thematic material, with mostly playful, lively music in the outer sections and a soaring, meltingly beautiful melody that comes midway through the second of the three verses. It is introduced by Hanna with the words, "Vilja, O Vilja, Du Waldmägdelein" (Vilja, O Vilja, you little woods-maiden...), and then the chorus takes it up. Lehár's music here already divulges a spiritual, if not stylistic kinship with Puccini.

© Robert Cummings, Rovi