The Merry Widow
- _Die lustige Witwe_ (German; 'The Merry Widow')
- German-language operetta in three acts by Franz Lehár
- Libretto by Victor Léon and Leo Stein based on Henri Meilhac's 1861 comedy L'attaché d'ambassade
- Premiered on 30 December 1905, Theater an der Wien, Vienna, Austria
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Plot
The operetta is set in the fictional Pontverdien Embassy in Paris in the early 1900s.
- Act 1: The young and rich widow Hanna Glawari returns from Paris to her native country, the fictional Balkan state of Pontevedro. Hanna's late husband, Count Danilo Danilowitsch, left her an enormous fortune, which will be lost to the state if she remarries a foreigner. Because of her beauty, Hanna receives a great amount of attention from Pontevedrin men, especially from Count Danilo, the attaché of the Pontevedrin embassy in Paris and a former lover of Hanna. However, Danilo is offended when Hanna says that he is not rich enough for her. The ambassador himself, Baron Mirko Zeta, wants Hanna for his wife, but he keeps hesitating whether she should become the wife of a 65-year-old man.
- Act 2: Hanna decides to travel to Paris to escape the machinations surrounding her remarriage. She meets Danilo in a nightclub, where Hanna pretends to be a cabaret singer. They share fond memories of their past, but he does not recognize her. At the end of their reunion, she lets slip her true identity. After he finds out that Hanna is the wealthy widow he has been avoiding, he is torn between his love for Hanna and his pride
- Act 3: Back at the embassy, Hanna announces at the party that she has decided to remarry. In the meantime, Baron Zeta becomes increasingly frustrated by Hanna's delay in answering his proposal of marriage. After his butler reveals that Hanna has secretly departed from the party, Baron Zeta decides to annul his ambassadorship and depart from Paris. Danilo finds Hanna in the garden and finally reveals his true feelings. Hanna reciprocates and they agree to marry. Baron Mirko Zeta then returns and hands over power as ambassador to Danilo, who leaves with his new wife.