Kalman, Emmerich [Imre]

(b Siofok, 24 Oct 1882; d Paris, 30 Oct 1953). Hungarian composer. At an early age he showed musical talent and an interest in the theatre, being a frequent visitor to the summer theatre in Siofok. He had high hopes of becoming a concert pianist, but he had to abandon these studies due to the onset of chronic neuritis. In 1900 he joined Koessler's composition class at the National Hungarian Royal Academy of Music, where for a time he was a fellow student of Bartok, Kodaly and Leo Weiner, as well as the future operetta composers Albert Szirmai and Viktor Jacobi. He also pursued law studies for a time. From 1904 to 1908 he was music critic for the daily Pesti naplo, meanwhile presenting himself as composer of 'serious' works such as the symphonic poems Saturnalia (1904) and Endre es Johanna (1905). In 1907 he received the Franz Josef Prize of Budapest for his compositions, and was thereby enabled to visit Bayreuth. That same year the popularity of some humorous cabaret songs led him towards the composition of his first operetta, Tatarjaras ('The Gay Hussars', 1908). This achieved enormous success throughout Europe and the USA, and its reception in Vienna led to his settling there.

In Vienna, Kalman began a sequence of successful works that in due course ranked him with Lehar as the leading exponent of the Viennese operetta genre in the period after World War I. Die Csardasfurstin (1915) and Grafin Mariza (1924) were the most successful, being produced around the world and remaining today among the best-loved examples of that time. Kalman also created new works for Budapest, London, New York and Zurich, being forced to leave Vienna after the Anschluss. He then moved to Paris in 1939 and, on the German occupation of that city, to the USA, where he worked unsuccessfully with Lorenz Hart on a musical. He retained his Hungarian nationality until 1942, becoming an American citizen only when the Hungarian government aligned itself definitely with Hitler. He returned to Europe in 1949, finally settling in Paris. His posthumously performed operetta, Arizona Lady (1954), was given its final form by his son Charles Emmerich Kalman (b Vienna, 17 Nov 1929), himself the composer of various light pieces and musicals.

Kalman's librettos were always carefully chosen -- sometimes after years of searching -- and were equally carefully set. Yet he managed to produce a rich vein of seemingly natural melody. In Die Herzogin von Chicago (1928) he experimented with jazz-flavoured American popular music, and in Kaiserin Josephine (1936) he attempted a more ambitious work, of which a projected production at the Vienna Staatsoper with Richard Tauber and Jarmila Novotna had to be abandoned for political reasons. However, Kalman's most successful and typical works are those in which the Viennese waltz is mixed with the Hungarian popular style. His major international operetta successes all had Hungarian settings, while other works had sub-plots with opportunities for music in the Hungarian manner. Even in his last work, set on a ranch in Arizona, the heroine is a Hungarian. Thus he was able to add to his fund of melody an almost obsessive taste for Hungarian popular rhythms, set off by a penchant for opulent orchestral colouring and instrumental counterpoint. His orchestrators used a full orchestra, incorporating such distinctive instruments as glockenspiel, harp, celesta, tam-tam, cimbalom, banjo, guitar and (in Die Bajadere and Der Teufelsreiter) the native Hungarian tarogato. He provided some particularly rewarding solos for tenor and soprano, especially in Grafin Mariza and Die Zirkusprinzessin (1926). His works also give important opportunities for the chorus, while his finales, often recapitulating themes heard earlier, are particularly well constructed and crafted to achieve maximum dramatic effect in the theatre.

WORKS
(selective list)

dramatic -- all operettas
WW Vienna, Theater an der Wien
Tatarjaras [The Gay Hussars] (3, K. von Bakonyi and A. Gabor), Budapest, Vig, 22 Feb 1908; rev. as Ein Herbstmanover (3, Bakonyi and R. Bodanzky), WW, 22 Jan 1909
Az obsitos [The Soldier on Leave] (3, Bakonyi), Budapest, Vig, 1910; rev. as Der gute Kamerad (2, V. Leon, after Bakonyi), Vienna, Burger, 27 Oct 1911; rev. as Gold gab ich fur Eisen [Her Soldier Boy] (Leon, after Bakonyi), WW, 16 Oct 1914
Der Zigeunerprimas [Sari] (3, F. Grunbaum and J. Wilhelm), Vienna, Johann Strauss, 11 Oct 1912
The Blue House (1, A. Hurgon), London, Hippodrome, 28 Oct 1912
Der kleine Konig (3, Bodanzky, after Bakonyi and F. Martos), WW, 27 Nov 1912
Kivandorlok [The Emigrants] (1, Gabor), Budapest, Modern, 1913
Zsuzsi kisasszony [Miss Springtime] (3, Martos and M. Brody), Budapest, Vig, 23 Feb 1915
Die Csardasfurstin [The Riviera Girl; The Gipsy Princess] (3, L. Stein and B. Jenbach), Vienna, Johann Strauss, 17 Nov 1915
Die Faschingsfee (3, A.M. Willner and R. Oesterreicher), Vienna, Johann Strauss, 21 Sept 1917 [partial musical reworking of Zsuzsi kisasszony]
Das Hollandweibchen [A Little Dutch Girl] (3, Stein and Jenbach), Vienna, Johann Strauss, 30 Jan 1920
Die Bajadere [The Yankee Princess] (3, J. Brammer and A. Grunwald), Vienna, Car, 23 Dec 1921
Grafin Mariza (3, Brammer and Grunwald), WW, 28 Feb 1924
Die Zirkusprinzessin (3, Brammer and Grunwald), WW, 26 March 1926
Golden Dawn (2, O. Harbach and O. Hammerstein II), Wilmington, Oct 1927, New York, Hammerstein's, 30 Nov 1927; collab. H. Stothart
Die Herzogin von Chicago (2, Brammer and Grunwald), WW, 5 April 1928
Das Veilchen vom Montmartre [Paris in Spring] (3, Brammer and Grunwald), Vienna, Johann Strauss, 21 March 1930; rev., WW, 25 July 1930
Ronny (film operetta, R. Schunzel, E. Pressburger, R. Schanzer and E. Welisch), Berlin, Gloria-Palast, 22 Dec 1931
Der Teufelsreiter (3, Schanzer and Welisch), WW, 10 March 1932
Kaiserin Josephine (8 scenes, P. Knepler and G. Herczeg), Zurich, Stadt, 18 Jan 1936
Miss Underground, 1943 (P. Gallico and L. Hart), inc.
Marinka (K. Farkas and G. Marion), New Haven, 1945, New York, Winter Garden, 18 July 1945
Arizona Lady (2, Grunwald and G. Beer), broadcast, Munich, Bayerische Rundfunk, 1 Jan 1954; stage, Berne, Stadt, 14 Feb 1954; completed C. Kalman

other works
Orch: Scherzando, str, 1903; Saturnalia, scherzo, 1904; Endre es Johanna, sym. poem, 1905
Large-scale vocal: Mikes bucsuja [Mikes's farewell] (Mezey), sym. melodrama, chorus, orch, 1907
Other works: pf pieces, 1903; art songs, 1902--7; cabaret songs 1907
Principal publisher: Weinberger

BIBLIOGRAPHY
GanzlEMT
R. Oesterreicher: Emmerich Kalman: der Weg eines Komponisten (Vienna, 1954, 2/1988 as Emmerich Kalman: Das Leben eines Operettenfursten)
V. Kalman: Gruss' mir die sussen, die reizenden Frauen: mein Leben mit Emmerich Kalman (Bayreuth, 1966)
A. Lamb: 'Emmerich Kalman -- a Centenary Tribute', Opera, xxxiii (1982), 1009--15
R. Traubner: Operetta: a Theatrical History (New York, 1983)
V. Klotz: 'Nach-Kakanische Operette um '33 und '38 am Beispiel von Emmerich Kalman und Ralf Benatzky', Osterreichische Musiker im Exil: Vienna 1988, 66--72
V. Klotz: Operette: Portrat und Handbuch einer unerhorten Kunst (Munich, 1991)
 

ANDREW LAMB