Emmerich Kálmán

Kalman, Emmerich (1882–1953), composer. The Hungarian‐born creator of Viennese operettas found Americans cool to his first imported work, The Gay Hussars (1909). However, his lovely collection of waltzes for Sari (1914) turned the tide. His up‐and‐down career in America included Miss Springtime (1916), Her Soldier Boy (1916), The Riviera Girl (1917), The Yankee Princess (1922), Countess Maritza (1926), The Circus Princess (1927), Golden Dawn (1927), and Marinka (1945). Yet despite his failures (and while Lehar's The Merry Widow was a far bigger hit than any of his works) on the whole Kalman was probably the most successful of all 20th‐century Viennese composers on American stages.

• Born: October 24, 1882
• Died: October 30, 1953
• Genres: Classical
• Instrument: Composer
• Representative Albums: "Die Csardasfurtin", "Gräfin Mariza", "Kalman on the Air

Biography

Emmerich Kalman was among the finest composers of operetta of the early/middle 20th century. The richness of his melodies and the singing parts he created have helped keep his work in the European repertory right into the end of the century.

The Hungarian-born Kalman displayed his musical talent during childhood and began studying the piano at an early age, but he was forced to abandon the instrument because of chronic neuritis. He entered the Budapest Academy of Music in 1900 as a composition student, pursuing a law degree at the same time. His classmates included Bela Bartok and Zoltan Kodaly. Kalman was published as a music critic from 1904 through 1908, and his early works earned him the Franz Josef Prize of Budapest in 1907.

Kalman started out as a composer of serious music, but his cabaret songs proved extremely popular, and he began moving toward lighter music in 1907. The following year, he wrote his first operetta, The Gay Hussars, which was a hit throughout Europe and the United States. Its success in Vienna led Kalman to make his home in the Austrian capital. He spent his most productive years in Vienna, writing an enviable string of very high-quality operettas, which were characterized not only by gorgeous melodies and delectable choruses but startlingly vivid librettos -- this was a frequent failing of many other operetta composers (Johann Strauss II, for example, for all of his skills as a composer, had virtually no sense at all when it came to choosing librettos, which has made it impossible to revive most of his operettas). His work combined the most pleasing and sophisticated elements of Viennese operette with the richly melodic, romantic Hungarian style of writing pioneered by Franz Liszt, not authentic but very enticing to the ear. Wherever possible, he found reason to include this Hungarian and "gypsy"-style writing in his work, although in later years, he also experimented with jazz influences, as in his 1928 operetta Die Herzogin von Chicago.

Kalman's 1912 operetta Der Zigeunerprimas elicited the critical comment from Viennese critic Richard Specht: "His music is fresh and pleasant, full of strength in its natural melodic invention and wholesome maturity. While others grope and experiment, he stands in the rich soil of folk music and hits the mark every time." His best work, well into the early 1930s, evoked the golden age of the Viennese waltz, while his orchestrations, as he freely admitted, were intended to evoke memories of Tchaikovsky's lushest work. His best operettas, most of which date from the period prior to the forced unification of Austria and Germany in 1938, are filled with memorable songs and choruses. Kalman's main contribution as a composer was as a creator of works that emphasized the choruses, as opposed to dance material, which was largely absent from his operettas. With the American composer Herbert Stothart (who was to become a mainstay of the MGM music department in the 1930s and 1940s), Kalman collaborated on the 1927 musical Golden Dawn, which utilized lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein. Kalman also found occasion to experiment in new media, writing the score to a filmed operetta entitled Ronny in 1931.

Kalman left Austria in 1938 upon the Anschluss with Germany. From 1939 until 1940, he resided in Paris, and following the German conquest of France, he moved to the United States. He renounced his Hungarian nationality after that country's government entered into a formal alliance with Nazi Germany. He completed one new operetta, Marinka, in 1945. His son, Charles Emmerich Kalman, is also a successful composer of musicals, and completed the elder Kalman's final work, Arizona Lady, in 1954.

Kalman's works are still occasionally performed at the end of the twentieth century in Germany and Austria, and recordings exist of several of them, primarily dating from the early 1970s. Singers of the caliber of Nicolai Gedda and Anneliese Rothenberger have performed and recorded the most popular of these, principally for German-speaking audiences, although EMI has also released them in England and America. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide

Gräfin Mariza [EMI] Buy this CD

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