With Franz Lehár, Viennese operetta experienced a noticeable upswing in the first decades of the 20th century. The new heyday of the genre, which became known as the ‘Silver Age’, is not only due to the particularly popular Lustigen Witwe, but also to Lehár's late operettas from the 1920s and early 1930s, in which he consciously moved closer to grand opera. These works are ambitious and sophisticated, often featuring prominent figures from cultural history, such as the ‘devil's violinist’ Niccolò Paganini or the ‘prince of poets’ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (in the operetta Friederike). And with Giuditta, labelled a ‘musical comedy’, he even celebrated a premiere at the Vienna State Opera. Melodiousness and melancholy are combined in Lehár's music in a peculiar, fascinating way.