Museum
The riverside villa where composer Franz Lehar lived and died in 1948, now a museum dedicated to his life and the operetta tradition in Bad Ischl.
Franz Lehar kept returning to Bad Ischl because everyone did. The Salzkammergut resort town was the summer residence of Emperor Franz Joseph I, and by extension a gathering point for Habsburg society, artists, and anyone who wanted to be near the centre of the empire’s cultural life.
Lehár composed and revised here, including reworking The Merry Widow into the version that would become one of the most performed operettas in history. He lived in the villa until his death in 1948, long after the Habsburg world that had produced him had ceased to exist.
The museum preserves the villa largely as he left it: scores, photographs, personal objects, and original furnishings that convey both the creative life and the somewhat melancholy afterlife of a man who outlived his era. The building itself is best seen from across the Traun, where the riverside setting registers properly.
People
composer1870 - 1948
The greatest operetta composer of the early 20th century. Lehar spent his summers in Bad Ischl for decades, as part of the same tradition as Emperor Franz Joseph I. His summer villa, the Leharvilla Bad Ischl, is now a museum. He died there in 1948.
