The Heavy Loss of the “Light Weight” Edmund Eysler

Edmund Eysler: 1874 – 1849
Say Viennese operetta to anyone and they most likely think of Johann Strauss or Franz Lehár. In any case, both Fledermaus and Die lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow) have pushed their way into mainstream opera houses despite the fact that neither specifically takes place in Vienna. The interpolated scene with Frosch, the drunken jailer is always an opportunity to position Fledermaus in a Viennese milieu while in fact, the opera itself makes no reference to the city or even its environs. Merry Widow takes place in Paris, a city that often serves as a suitable stand-in for Vienna. Yet both operettas deal with the interaction between aristocracy and the aspiring bourgeoisie.
![489312_La-ChauveSouris-Die-Fledermaus[1]](https://i0.wp.com/forbiddenmusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/489312_la-chauvesouris-die-fledermaus1.jpg?resize=620%2C463&ssl=1)
A French poster for Strauss’s Fledermaus and a German poster for the Merry Widow – both operettas wearing their Offenbach provenance and French influence quite openly at the expense of earlier home-grown Viennese operettas.
(An example of the wine-house music that offered the context of pre-Offenbach influenced Vienna operetta – The title, Da Weana ist all’weil leger – is dialect and translates into contemporary English as The Viennese are always laid back.)
![wiener_typen_pressefoto_06[1]](https://i0.wp.com/forbiddenmusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/wiener_typen_pressefoto_0611.jpg?resize=336%2C433&ssl=1)
Josef Engelhardt’s Viennese Characters – the Flower Sellers. It was characters, such as these, who were the primary players in local operetta, whereas in later works, if they appeared at all, it was only in secondary or comic roles – Fledermaus’s drunken jailer Frosch being the classic example.

Another – later – Engelhardt painting of slightly more up-market Viennese in an outdoor cafe
Fledermaus therefore came as a shock: it took place in the present and most clearly had nothing to do with the little man and woman from Vienna’s less affluent suburbs. It changed what people had come to expect of operettas, and coming as it did immediately after the stock market crash of 1873, the wealthy bourgeoisie found themselves absorbing the brunt of satire. Nor did it deal with boy-meets-girl/boy-loses-girl/boy-gets-girl-back plots. It dealt with middle-class infidelity with an array of opportunistic, social climbing insalubrious characters. It was a hit, though not initially in Vienna, where it only ran for a disappointing seven consecutive performances at the Theater an der Wien. It wasn’t until nearly 15 years later that it would get near the 200 performance mark at the same venue, but by that time, it was already a hit abroad. It was exportable, unlike Vienna’s most popular operettas hitherto, even making it onto the schedule of the ultra-sober Hamburg Opera under Gustav Mahler in 1894. This in itself is remarkable: Operettas were not meant to be performed in opera houses, and their composers and librettists ordinarily harboured no aspirations to cross this particular Rubicon.
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Bruder Straubinger is in reality a fictional figure who represents the cheerful apprentice who travels from one town to the next.
When Edmund Eysler premiered his Bruder Straudinger at the Theater an der Wien in 1903 it was a sensation in that it looked back rather than forward. Between 1903 and the start of the First World War, Eysler would dominate Vienna’s operetta theatres with a variety of works that today have been totally forgotten. The formula was something local audiences must have been craving after a quarter century of Offenbach and Strauss.
![220px-Thelemanngasse_8_Hernals-2[1]](https://i0.wp.com/forbiddenmusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/220px-thelemanngasse_8_hernals-21.jpg?resize=220%2C294&ssl=1)
The plaque outside Eylser’s birthplace, removed by the Nazis but restored almost immediately following their defeat.

Leo Fall (r) clowing with brother Ernst (l) with head down, Siegfried and Richard, along with father Moritz Fall.
Eysler’s first stage work was a ballet called Schlaraffenland based on the Grimms’ fairy-tale The Story of Schlauraffen Land, which he submitted to the Imperial Opera in Vienna. Though accepted by the head of ballet, the opera was under the directorship of Gustav Mahler who had little regard for dance and rejected the work as too expensive to mount. Strauss’s librettist for Zigeuner Baron – Gypsy Baron, Ignaz Schnitzer, suggested he set his libretto Der Schelm von Bergen, rejected by Strauss as too similar to The Mikado. Eysler’s Der Hexenspiegel – The Witch’s Mirror would meet with similar disappointment, but result in the support of publisher Joseph Weinberger, allowing Eysler (still spelling his name ‘Eisler’) to give up teaching piano and devote himself to composition. Again, Mahler rejected the work and preferring to stay with tried and trusted Lortzing for comic opera – it would also be rejected by Prague and Leipzig.
![Plakat_Venedig_in_Wien[1]](https://i0.wp.com/forbiddenmusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/plakat_venedig_in_wien1.jpg?resize=393%2C470&ssl=1)
Poster for Gabor Steiner’s ‘Venice in Vienna’
Ultimately, Eysler took employment under Gabor Steiner (the father of film composer Max Steiner) working at the summer theatre Venedig in Wien – Venice in Vienna. One of the singers he would work with was ‘Miss Massari’ – soon to become better known as Fritzi Massary.
![m290445a[1]](https://i0.wp.com/forbiddenmusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/m290445a1.jpg?resize=261%2C400&ssl=1)
The young Fritzi Massary
![15959534437[1]](https://i0.wp.com/forbiddenmusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/159595344371.jpg?resize=366%2C473&ssl=1)
Weinberger’s score for Bruder Straubinger
With the guaranteed success of Bruder Straubinger, Wilhelm Karczag, director of the Theater an der Wien suggested that Edmund Eisler change his name. “Eisler isn’t a name for a composer!” he reportedly told Edmund – an argument that apparently was never attempted with namesake Hanns Eisler. Edmund was adamant that he would not change his name as it was disrespectful to his ancestors. A compromise was reached with the exchange of ‘i’ with a ‘y’ – making it “sound more exotic: possibly Dutch!” opined Karczag. When it was revealed that Eisler family members would have no future claim on rights or royalties, the name-change was made official for all Family members.

The great Viennese comic actor Alexander Girardi 1850 – 1918
Much of the success of Bruder Straubinger was down to a role conceived for Alexander Girardi, Vienna’s favourite folk-actor of the day, having been central to the success of Zeller’s Vogelhändler. Girardi and Eysler would go on to collaborate on a number of operettas after Bruder Straubinger with its hit-song (still immensely popular today) of ’Küssen ist keine Sünd’ (‘Kissing isn’t a sin’). First Girardi would have to buy Eysler a decent suit and pair of shoes so that he could take his bows. It was the start of one of operetta’s most successful partnerships. Straubinger was followed by Pufferl, also at Theater an der Wien. It hardly needs mentioning that the success of Eysler and Girardi would be an enormous irritation to Steiner, though ultimately, he mounted Straubinger himself for a Venedig in Wien guest appearance in Berlin having fired Eysler upon hearing of the work going to a rival theatre.
![B9471347T9471352[1]](https://i0.wp.com/forbiddenmusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/b9471347t94713521.jpg?resize=384%2C268&ssl=1)
The entrance to Gabor Steiner’s arcade and vaudeville theatre ‘Venice in Vienna’ – a park (now part of Vienna’s Prater) that offered canals and gondolas along with many other amusements
![15374981546[1]](https://i0.wp.com/forbiddenmusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/153749815461.jpg?resize=324%2C420&ssl=1)
Weinberger’s score for Apron Lizzie – Schützenliesel
(Muatterl liab’s Muatterl – Mommy – dead Mommy – a dialect number from Eylser’s ‘Apron Lizzie’)
A 1909 return to Venedig in Wien with Fritzi Massary with Glücksschweinchen – Lucky Piggie was less successful, though it and another modest success called Johann der Zweite – John II, would be more successful outside of Vienna. The American impresario Henry Savage bought the rights to both of these works to plump up Künstlerblut, rolling the 3 works into two with the first called The Love Cure, and touted as a worthy successor to The Merry Widow, playing for five weeks on Broadway before enjoying considerable success on tour. June Bride, the American re-working of Johann der Zweite was less successful.

Vienna’s Bürgertheater – one of several light Music venues in the City
Oskar Fronz of Vienna’s Bürgertheater would bank on Eylser until the outbreak of the First World War with Der unsterblicher Lump – The Immortal Cad in 1910, turned into a film in 1930 by UFA, but billing the composer as Ralph Benatzky, though in fact he was merely the supervising composer for the transfer to cinema; Das Zirkuskind – The Circus Child, a return to collaboration with Girardi; Der Frauenfresser in 1911 and given the American title The Woman Haters; ein Tag in Paradies – A Day in Paradise (or in American, Blue Paradise, performed with Sigmund Romberg interpolations): and one of his biggest successes Der lachende Ehemann – the Laughing Husband in 1913. Das Strumpfband der Pompadour – Madame Pompadour’s Garterbelt in 1915; Equally successful was Der Aushilfsgatte – The Relief Husband in 1917 and the appropriately titled Dunkler Schatz – Dark Treasure coming in the fateful year of 1918. All of these works would run and run, more or less to the same formula of easy on the ear, sweet light-weight comedy.
![568_001[1]](https://i0.wp.com/forbiddenmusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/568_0011.jpg?resize=298%2C469&ssl=1)
The Immortal Cad – Der unsterbliche Lump
Eysler’s ability to knock out one success after another seemed unending. From the end of the First World War until his ban by the Nazis, he went on to compose an astonishing 24 stage works ranging from moderately to extremely successful and virtually nothing that could count as a failure. The Apollo Theater mounted his biggest success to date called Hanni geht tanzen – Hanni goes Dancing, followed by other war-time hits Graf Toni- Count Tony and Die oder keine – Either She or Nobody running for 125 successive performances. His 1914 chauvinistic Frühling am Rhein would have been more appropriately forgotten, composed in the initial intoxication of Austria-Hungary’s war-time coalition with Germany. More was the pity as one of its librettists was the best in the game: Fritz Löhne-Beda. The writers’ team for most of Eysler’s war-time operettas was made up of Oskar Friedmann and Ludwig Herzer.
![100126682[1]](https://i0.wp.com/forbiddenmusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/1001266821.jpg?resize=300%2C451&ssl=1)
The score for the Seesaw Song
His post-war works were more equivocal and he tried to keep up with the trend for contemporary settings and escapist tales of aristocracy with their contemporary interpolation of Fox-trots, Shimmies and Charlestons. His effort in this direction with Das Land der Liebe – The Country of Love, was a reasonable success. He nevertheless returned to what he did best and in 1927, the year of Ernst Krenek’s Jonny Spielt Auf, Eysler would enjoy his greatest success since Bruder Straubinger with Die gold’ne Meisterin – The Golden Mistress (in the sense of employer rather than lover). It ran over 200 successive performances at Theater an der Wien and was reputed to be Hitler’s favourite operetta. Ihr Erster Ball – Her first Ball followed in 1929, but with financial chaos looming it would spell the end of Eysler’s success and perhaps the end of a uniquely Viennese genre of operetta that today is barely remembered.
![s_titelbildweinb_11-10[1]](https://i0.wp.com/forbiddenmusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/s_titelbildweinb_11-101.jpg?resize=338%2C473&ssl=1)
Score for the enormously popular (even today) Fein, Fein schmeckt uns der Wein
(Fein, fein schmeckt uns der Wein, from Der lachende Ehemann‘ – Fine, fine tastes the Wine from ‘The Laughing Husband’ – one of Eysler’s most enduring hits)
To complete the artistic biography its worth mentioning only that following the war in 1945, Eysler would be welcomed back with a return of the plaque removed from his birthplace by the Nazis. He composed one more ‘hit’ with Wiener Musik – Viennese Music, in 1947, performed at the Bürgertheater. He died on October 4th 1949 after a fall from the stage. He was 73 and it was surely a tragic, but unsurprisingly fitting end to a lifetime devoted to the theatre.

A commemorative coin in honour of Edmund Eysler
Evaluating the importance of a composer such as Eysler is difficult. His Ace with local audiences was the ultra-Viennese actor/Singer Alexander Girardi, friend of the little man as well as Katharina Schratt, the confidante of the Emperor Franz Joseph. Girardi as an actor defined Vienna much in the same way that Woody Allen defines New York today. Every character he played was instantly recognisable and irresistibly appealing. Eysler’s operettas, often with Girardi in the lead, dominated local stages while attracting the sneers of grand musical luminaries such as Ludwig Karpath who in 1903 wrote the following:
“The music of Edmund Eysler? Easy on the ear, while not being overly original. If Edmund Eysler is the new man on the street, his tunes are as old as the operetta hills of a distant age. It goes without saying that Mr. Eysler at least distinguishes himself from his colleagues by being a more than competent musician who knows how to draw out and mix local colour. He organises an amusing squence with a string of Waltzes, polkas and marches along with attractive sung numbers.”

Pufferl – the Name of a hairdresser – would have been more successful had Girardi not fought with the director Franz Wallner, leaving the production after only 51 Performances.
(Merke Dir gut – sei auf der Hut – Take Note and Take Care – from ‘Pufferl’)
Ten years later, the de haut en bas view had hardly changed with the following observation:
“Of all the Viennese operetta composers today Edmund Eysler must surely be the most approachable and most frequently performed. Perhaps the reason for this is his ability to hit the right degree of easy-on-the-ear melody. He expresses himself through his works by employing the familiar dialect of working class Vienna, never imposing himself, his performers or his audience to the artificially exalted heights of High German; he maintains a respectable banality, while aiming for, and hitting the unabashed pleasures of the street ballad right on the mark.”
![unsterbliche-lump-der-2[1]](https://i0.wp.com/forbiddenmusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/unsterbliche-lump-der-21.jpg?resize=323%2C700&ssl=1)
Poster for the 1930 film version of Der unsterbliche Lump with the name of the composer as Ralph Benatzky, who arranged Eysler’s score for Cinema.

Eysler and his wife at the height of his success outside their villa ‘Straubinger’ in the small village of St. Andrä Wörden, near Vienna
(‘Jubiläumswalzer’ – ‘Jubilee Waltz’)
Eysler’s earlierst librettists were Moritz West, former collaborator of Carl Zeller who had declared that there had been no composers worth collaborating with between Zeller and Eysler (tactlessly omitting Johann Strauss) and Ignaz Schnitzer, librettist for Strauss’s Gypsy Baron. There followed a nomenclature of comic aristocracy including Fritz Grünbaum, Robert Bodanzky, Felix Salten, Fritz Löhner-Beda, Oskar Friedmann, Ludwig Herzer, Julius Brammer and Ernst Marischka.
![EngelhartLoge[1]](https://i0.wp.com/forbiddenmusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/engelhartloge1.jpg?resize=374%2C391&ssl=1)
One of Engelhardt’s best known paintings showing the Viennese at a ball with their cheeky combination of formality and sauciness – a subject that is taken up by Eysler and his librettists.

Theater an der Wien at around the time of Eylser’s last great pre-war success: Die Gold’ne Meisterin
(Du liebe gold’ne Meisterin)
It would not be the slightest help to Eysler that Hitler would admire his Gold’ne Meisterin. It, along with all of his other hits, was removed following the annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in March 1938.The plaque outside of his birthplace was removed and Eysler would become persona-non-grata overnight. Eysler’s marriage to a non-Jew was his partial rescue along with his status as ‘esteemed citizen of Vienna’ an honorific offered by the city, surprisingly not revoked by the Nazis. It still meant he was unable to attend public performances, enter parks or restaurants and even walk on the street as he was in constant danger of being swept up by one of the frequent raids that arrested everyone Nazi thugs suspected as Jewish. “Special status”, if such there was, would only be established after months in a concentration camp and the payment of bribes. Eysler was too well known to escape notice and too elderly to survive even a week in a camp. He found himself confined within the four walls of his home. His worries extended to the safety of his father and other relatives who, had they not already been deported, found themselves unable to escape the bombing raids in shelters that prohibited Jews. Friends and fans from earlier days crossed the street to avoid compromising themselves. His librettists, Grünbaum and Löhner-Beda were murdered in camps, Brammer died while fleeing the Nazis in France, Herzer died in Switzerland. Others, such as Felix Salten or Gustav Beer, co-librettist for Eysler’s Der König Heiratet, or The King Marries, fled for their lives and lived out the war years in exile.
![Maske-in-Blau-348x486[1]](https://i0.wp.com/forbiddenmusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/maske-in-blau-348x4861.jpg?resize=348%2C486&ssl=1)
With so many popular operas removed due to their so-called ‘Jewish’ provenance, replacements were required with Maske in Blau – the Mask in Blue being one of the most popular.
(So tantz man nur in Wien – One only Dances like this in Vienna from ‘Die Gold’ne Meistering)
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Eysler’s grave in Vienna’s Central Cemetery
If you have any interest in Venedig in Wien try to find this book. It’s been out of print for a long time but worth looking for. You’ll see how spectacular the place actually was.
Norbert Rubey and Peter Schoenwald: Venedig in Wien : Theater- und Vergnügungsstadt der Jahrhundertwende
Thanks for this recommendation – in fact Vienna’s municipal museum, Wien Museum, held an exhibition on this subject about 25 years ago which I saw. I’ve seen the catalogue, though it’s in my flat (if I still have it!) in Vienna and at present, I’m in the UK. Come to think of it, I think your book recommendation IS the catalogue! Venedig in Wien was a very big deal that was the seed of today’s amusement park and of course, one of the city’s most iconic landmarks, the Riesenrad – the huge Ferris wheel as seen in the movie The Third Man was the property of Gabor Steiner and Aryanised.
I don’t know if you’re a Facebook user, but there is a series of Venedig in Wien photos on the Wien Nostalgia page:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.362970040564703.1073741927.238341929694182&type=3
Thanks. I’ll take a look.
My grandfather, Hans Herling, collaborated with Eysler. I recall my mother speaking of gatherings with them and Lehar. How could I find out more info re location of plays-which opera houses were played in , etc and what happened to Hans Herling? Thank you.
There are a couple of places where one might find more information. In Vienna, there is the professor for Musicals and Operetta, Wolfgang Dosch: wolfgang.dosch@gmx.net who might be able to offer information. Another expert is at the operetta research center:
http://operetta-research-center.org/ – Kevin Clarke would be your first point of call: kevin.clarke@t-online.de Another Viennese specialist is Dr Marie-Theres Arnom: mtarnbom@utanet.at Our recent Edmund Eylser concert for Austrian Radio meant we had an Eysler great-grandson in attendance: Dr. Paul Wagner: paul.wagner@univie.ac.at I’m afraid that I’m unable to offer additional information, but I hope that one of the above contacts may be able to help.
In Addition, I found this page, which I guess you might already be familiar with?
http://operadata.stanford.edu/?f%5BcomposerSort_facet%5D%5B%5D=Eysler%2C+Edmund&f%5Bcountry_facet%5D%5B%5D=Austria&f%5BlibrettistSort_facet%5D%5B%5D=Herling%2C+Hans
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Hi Michael– If I may, Alfred Gruenwald was not murdered by the Nazis. He and his family fled to France and then the US where he lived in NYC and continued writing librettos and translated American pop song lyrics into German for the war effort. His son Henry became managing editor of Time magazine and was appointed ambassador to Austria by president Reagan.
Hi Robert, Thanks for this – I’ll certainly make this correction. I must check my source – possibly I’ve mixed him up with another Librettist: thank you again!
You’re most welcome. Speaking of librettists, in one of your essays you said every librettist working during the Weimar period was Jewish with one exception. But you never named that exception. Who was he? Thanks for any info.
I think that was a misunderstanding. I was quoting Ralph Benatzky’s diaries in which he states that only he and Lehar are non-Jewish operetta Composers and ALL the librettists are Jewish.
Thanks Robert – as I suspected: I had mixed up Grünwald with Grünbaum. Grünbaum was murdered in Dachau in 1941. Thanks for flagging this error!
Thanks for the Benatzky info. I misremembered what you wrote. By the way, Benatzky was slightly wrong about the Gentile composers. He wrongly thought Stolz was Jewish.
In fact, he got a lot wrong in this particular Quote – which I recycle in my book: he calls certain publishers Jewish who weren’t and assumes some publishers aren’t Jewish who were. The quote in its entirety says more about operetta pre-Hitler in a subjective rather objective way, and was worth including for that reason.
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