The Merry Widow ballet is a 1975 adaptation of Franz Lehár's 1905 romantic operetta The Merry Widow.
Music for "The Merry Widow" Ballet with John Lanchbery conducting The State Orchestra of Victoria, Australia. (CD cover)
The Merry Widow is an operetta by the Austro-Hungarian composer Franz Lehár. The librettists, Viktor Léon and Leo Stein, based the story – concerning a rich widow, and her countrymen's attempt to keep her money in the principality by finding her the right husband – on an 1861 comedy play, L'attaché d'ambassade by Henri Meilhac.
Franz Lehár
Lily Elsie in act 3, London, 1907
Louis Treumann and Mizzi Günther on the frontpage of a piano–vocal score, 1906
Donald Brian and Ethel Jackson in the original Broadway production (1907)