Die lustige Witwe - Viljalied (Vilja Song)

The most successful of all Lehár’s operettas - the most successful of all Viennese operettas next to Die Fledermaus - was, and still is, Die lustige Witwe (“The Merry Widow”), which was first performed in Vienna in 1905. Set for the most part in the Paris embassy of an imaginary Balkan state, it skilfully exploits both the sophisticated amusements of the great city and the sentiment associated with the backward way of life in Pontevedro. “I’m off to chez Maxim” belongs to the former category. The Vilja Song - introduced by Hanna Glawari, a young and rich and beautiful widow, the loss of whose personal fortune through marriage to a fortune-seeking Frenchman could sink the whole Pontevedran economy - falls in the latter category. It’s a kind of folk song: Vilja, a beautiful wood nymph, allows a huntsman to fall in love with her and then, to his inconsolable despair, disappears . . . .