Aria of Mi (Das Land des Lächelns)

The work began as Die gelbe Jacke, staged in Vienna in 1923 without success. Six years later Lehár revised it with Ludwig Herzer and Fritz Löhner-Beda, rewrote the tenor part for Richard Tauber and gave it a new title; Das Land des Lächelns opened at the Metropol-Theater in Berlin on 10 October 1929 and made composer and singer international property. The plot — a Viennese woman marries a Chinese prince and cannot live in his world — ends in separation, part of the deliberately unhappy turn Lehár's late operettas take. Tauber sang Dein ist mein ganzes Herz for the rest of his career.