
Contents
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Introduction: The First Truly Global Work of Musical Theatre Introduction: The First Truly Global Work of Musical Theatre
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The Work and Its Composer The Work and Its Composer
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Die lustige Witwe and the Status of Operetta Die lustige Witwe and the Status of Operetta
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The Traveling Widow, Translated The Traveling Widow, Translated
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The Maurice Bandmann Company and the Touring Widow The Maurice Bandmann Company and the Touring Widow
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La viuda alegre/A viúva alegre/La vedova allegra in Latin America La viuda alegre/A viúva alegre/La vedova allegra in Latin America
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The Merry Widow in Immigrant North America The Merry Widow in Immigrant North America
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Parodies and Refunctionings Parodies and Refunctionings
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Waltzing Along Waltzing Along
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Digital Newspaper Sources Digital Newspaper Sources
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Notes Notes
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Bibliography Bibliography
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4 ‘Merrily She Waltzes Along’: Die lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow) as Global Hit
Get accessJohn Koegel is a professor of musicology and the graduate advisor in the School of Music at California State University, Fullerton. He conducts research in American and Mexican musical topics, particularly musical theatre, and music in the context of ethnicity and immigration. Koegel is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities research fellowship and of research grants from the American Council of Learned Societies and American Philosophical Society for his work on immigrant musical theater. His current in-progress books have the working titles ‘Musical Theater in Immigrant America, 1840–1940’ and ‘Musical Theater in Mexican Los Angeles, 1840–1940’. His musical edition Mexican-American Music from Southern California, circa 1830–1930: The Lummis Cylinder Collection and Other Sources will be published as part of the Music of the United States of America series (A-R Editions). Koegel’s previous book, Music in German Immigrant Theater: New York City, 1840–1940 (University of Rochester Press, 2009) was given the 2011 Irving Lowens Book Award of the Society for American Music. His articles and reviews have appeared in journals such as the Journal of the American Musicological Society, Journal of the Society for American Music, American Music, Latin-American Music Review, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, Historia Mexicana, and Heterofonía.
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Published:23 October 2023
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Abstract
By 1907 Franz Lehár’s operetta Die lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow, 1905) had played in almost all German-speaking cities and had triumphed in Warsaw, Budapest, London, and New York. It not only sparked the silver age of Viennese operetta but was also one of the first productions to make extensive use of marketing, including the ‘Merry Widow hat’ and many other commercial tie-ins. But the success story of the wealthy widow Hanna Galwari and her noble suitor Count Danilo Danilovitsch did not stop there. The operetta masterpiece can be seen as the first truly global work of musical theatre: it was popular everywhere it was performed, in a multitude of languages and countries. This chapter charts the victorious journey of The Merry Widow around the world and highlights how its enthusiastic reception and many revivals paved the way for numerous stage and film parodies, refunctionings, and film and television versions. More than a century after the Widow’s première, it is still a very successful artistic and commercial global property.
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