“Love Live for Ever” (Liebe du Himmel auf Erden) from Paganini

After Die lustige Witwe Lehár went on scoring hit after hit, not least with Paganini in 1925. Based on an entirely imaginary episode in the life of the legendary violinist, it was the first of several Lehár operettas written with Richard Tauber in mind as the leading tenor. One of its most celebrated numbers, however, is for a soprano, the Princess who falls in love with Paganini and who, as she makes quite clear in ”Love Live for Ever,” is most reluctant to lose him. Although the operetta is set in Lucca in the early 19th century, no one in Vienna in the first quarter of the 20th would have been surprised to hear Princess Anna Elisa pouring her heart out in a Viennese waltz song.