In early 1905, Tatiana, a revised version of Kukułki premiered in Budapest. In 1896 this opera was first performed in Leipzig and later in Königsberg. The work was titled Cuckoo, and its content concerned the story of a soldier sent to Siberia in love with a fisherman's daughter. One of Lehár's friends, Captain Felix Falzari, an amateur playwright, wrote an operatic libretto for him, inspired by the story of the American traveller and explorer George Kennan, who spent several years in Siberia. Soon, however, he moved to the port town of Pula, the main headquarters of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, where he led an excellent orchestra. 45 (Hungarian Fantasy) for violin and orchestra. This choice turned out to be a bullseye as Ferenc wrote many compositions there, among them some dedicated to Hungarian themes, including Ungarische Fantasie Op. A year later, he won a competition for the position of bandmaster at another, 25th infantry regiment stationed in Losoncz. That's why he tried to move to the 50th Infantry Regiment where his father served. However, he was not entirely satisfied with this job, mainly due to his low salary. After graduating from the conservatory, the eighteen-year-old Lehár joined the theatre orchestra in Elberfeld. Lehár would probably have followed the advice of great composers, as he was considering changing his degree subject, but he listened to his father, who strongly advised him against it. The famous German composer Johannes Brahms was of a similar opinion. The young Hungarian presented him with his compositions, including two sonatas, a scherzo and a capriccio. The Czech genius, realising Ferenc's talent, advised him to abandon playing the violin solo and focus on composing. He studied violin with Anton Bennewitz, director of the Conservatory, and music theory with Josef Bohuslav Foerster, an outstanding Czech composer. After five years of tuition, Bennewitz took Lehár to Antonín Dvořák. After graduating from high school he entered the Conservatory in Prague. Ferenc demonstrated outstanding musical skills relatively early on. At the age of only six he composed a piece about his mother with a text very mature for his age. When he was nine years old, the regiment where his father served was moved to Budapest, and as a result the whole family moved there as well. He had three siblings: sister Maria and brothers Anton – later Major General C. Franz, bandmaster of the 50th Infantry Regiment, and Chrstine, a Hungarian, daughter of a veteran of the Hungarian uprising were his parents. Source: Wikimedia Commonsįerenc Lehár was born on 30 April 1870 in the small town of Komárom in Hungary. Monument to Ferenc Lehár in his home town. Increasingly more wonderful, creative and sublime musical forms accompanied by an even more opulent orchestration meant that the Lehár operetta was a hit across the world's stages. With each subsequent operetta, Lehár raised the musical spectacle to an ever higher level. The first decade of the twentieth century brought a true operetta revival hanks to the genius of this Hungarian composer, who shone at the height of his career. He managed to revive this genre, which began to fade after the end of its golden, initial period. Source: Wikimedia Commonsįerenc Lehár was a precursor of a new direction for the West European operetta. Ferenc Lehár in a photograph taken in 1906.
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