Background
Lehár composed Der Graf von Luxemburg in only three weeks and in a private remark before its premiere called it "Sloppy work, completely worthless!" However, it became his first major international success after The Merry Widow. Between those operettas, he had composed two one-act stage works, Peter und Paul reisen ins Schlaraffenland (Peter and Paul Travel to Paradise) and Mitislaw der Moderne (Fashionable Mitislaw), followed by his indifferently received three-act operetta Der Mann mit den drei Frauen (The Man with Two Wives) in 1908 and the somewhat more successful Das Fürstenkind (Maids of Athens) which premiered in October 1909, one month before Der Graf von Luxemburg.
Like The Merry Widow, Der Graf von Luxemburg deals with the themes of how the promise of wealth affects love and marriage, and the contrast between the gaiety of Parisian society and Slavic seriousness. The libretto was written by Alfred Willner, Robert Bodanzky, and Leo Stein. Stein had previously worked with Lehár on his 1904 Der Göttergatte, and Bodanzky had co-authored the librettos for both Peter und Paul reisen ins Schlaraffenland and Mitislaw der Moderne. The libretto for Der Graf von Luxemburg was not completely new. It was a re-working of the one written by Alfred Willner and Bernard Buchbinder twelve years earlier for Johann Strauss' unsuccessful operetta Die Göttin der Vernunft (The Goddess of Reason).
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