Leo Fall

Leo Fall

Leo Fall (2 February 1873 – 16 September 1925) was an Austrian composer of operettas.

Life

Born in Olmütz (Olomouc), Leo (or Leopold) Fall was taught by his father Moritz Fall (1848–1922), a bandmaster and composer, who settled in Berlin. The younger Fall studied at the Vienna Conservatory before rejoining his father in Berlin. His teachers in Vienna were Robert Fuchs and Johann Nepomuk Fuchs. In 1895 he began a new career as an operetta conductor in Hamburg, and started to compose. From 1904 onwards he devoted himself to composition. While less successful than his contemporary Franz Lehár, he was nevertheless capable of producing melodious and well orchestrated work. After working in Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne he settled in Vienna in 1906, where he died. He is buried at the Vienna Zentralfriedhof.

His best known operettas in the English-speaking world are The Dollar Princess and Madame Pompadour, which had successful runs in London and New York and remained in the repertory in Germany and Austria throughout the 20th century. Der liebe Augustin (1912; Princess Caprice in London) is reported to have been given an unprecedented 3,360 performances. His opera Der goldene Vogel, which was performed in Dresden in 1920 with Richard Tauber and Elisabeth Rethberg was less successful. Leo Fall's relatives live today in Sweden and the United States.

Stage works

Operas:

• Paroli (1 act; 1902)
• Irrlicht (1905)
• Der goldene Vogel (1920)

Operettas:

• Der Rebell (Vienna, 1905)
• The Merry Farmer (Mannheim, 1907)
• Die Dollarprinzessin (Vienna, 1907; adapted into English as The Dollar Princess 1909)
• Die geschiedene Frau (Vienna, 1908; adapted into English as The Girl in the Train 1910)
• Der Schrei nach der Ohrgeige (Vienna, 1909)
• Brüderlein fein (Vienna, 1909)
• Das Puppenmädel (Vienna, 1910)
• Die schöne Risette (Vienna, 1910)
• Die Sirene (Vienna, 1911; adapted into English as The Siren 1911)
• The Eternal Waltz (London, 1911)
• Der liebe Augustin (Berlin, 1912) (Princess Caprice) (performed 3,360 times)
• Die Studentengräfin (Berlin, 1913)
• Der Nachtschnellzug (Vienna, 1913)
• Der Frau Ministerpräsident (Berlin, 1914)
• Der künstliche Mensch (Berlin, 1915)
• Die Kaiserin (Fürstenliebe) (Berlin, 1916)
• Die Rose von Stambul (Vienna, 1916)
• Die spanische Nachtigall (Berlin, 1920)
• Der heilige Ambrosius (Berlin, 1921)
• Die Strassensängerin (Vienna, 1922)
• Madame Pompadour (Berlin, 1922)
• Der süsse Kavalier (Berlin, 1923)
• Jugend im Mai (Dresden,1926)

References

Note

Sources

Fall, Leo(pold) by Andrew Lamb, in 'The New Grove Dictionary of Opera', ed. Stanley Sadie (London, 1992) ISBN 0-333-73432-7

External links

• Online biography and list of works from Kurt Gänzl's Encyclopedia of Musical Theatre in the archive of the Operetta Research Center Amsterdam
• List of Fall's stage works with information about librettists and theatres
• Profile of Fall
• Marcus Pyka (Franklin College Switzerland), Das Osmanische Reich als Vorbild wider Willen in Leo Fall's Rose von Stambul (1916), in: Archiv des Operetta Research Center Amsterdam 1 2