Lehár Schön ist die Welt opérette Mosuc Todorovich Schirmer - CPO777055

Originally entitled Endlich allein and premiered at the Theater an der Wien in 1914, this operetta contains one of the rarest and most demanding second acts in the whole history of the genre: one long scene involving only two persons. Lehár was particularly proud of this work, but the operetta public, accustomed to lighter fare, did not pay proper tribute to it; and so he decided to rework it in 1930, now calling it Schön ist die Welt (Fair is the World) but not changing a single note in his beloved Act II. In the meantime he had finally found in Richard Tauber the singer who was ready to storm his musical heights with him, and the title song is a genuine Tauber hit (still assigned to the soprano in the first version). The critic and Mozart biographer Alfred Einstein was enthusiastic about the superb, symphonic quality of the score and in this connection termed Lehár the Wagner of the operetta. Our complete recording of the music (without the dialogues), marking yet another milestone in the Lehár edition initiated by me, gives you the opportunity to hear for yourself just how right Einstein was!