“Americans,” Franz Lehar once complained, “know me only as the creator of The Merry Widow” But how well they knew The Merry Widow! In 1907, the Widow’s gay Viennese charm had captured Broadway. Merry ...

Franz Lehar's bright, carefree music will probably always have a home on New Year's Day programs, such as the Vienna Philharmonic's famous annual concert. The Slovak Radio Symphony didn't need the new ...

The little old man in a pink Tyrolean shirt played the piano with trembling hands. When the two Allied war correspondents swayed to his lilting Merry Widow Waltz, tears came to the old man’s eyes.

Musically, a lot happened between 1880 and 1922 — Scott Joplin composed “Ragtime,” Franz Lehar’s “The Merry Widow” opened in Vienna and Carrie Jacobs-Bond wrote a hit titled “I Love You Truly,” which ...