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Johann Strauß was born on 25th October 1825 in St. Ulrich (today a part of Vienna) as the son of the musician Johann Strauß (senior).
Against his father´s will but with the support of his mother he became a bandmaster and composer like his father. His first public appearance at the Casino Dommayr was a great success. During the following years he toured all of Europe and North-America. After the death of his father in 1849 he took over his orchestra and was appointed music director of all court balls.
Up to this time Strauß had only composed dance music which established him as the “King of the Waltz”. A meeting with Jacques Offenbach in 1864 prompted him to o compose operettas, which he himself always referred to as “Comic Operas”. His first operetta “Indigo and the 40 Robbers” was first performed at the Theatre on the Vienna (also a river). In 1874 he wrote what is probably his best known opera “ Die Fledermaus”. “The Merry War” and “A Night in Venice”, “The Gypsy Baron” (1885) and “Viennese Blood” which was performed in 1899 after his death, were to follow. Altogether Strauß composed about 20 operettas, 500 waltzes, polkas and quadrilles, one ballet (Cinderella) and one opera “Knight Pasman”.
Johann Strauß was married three times. His first wife Henriette died in 1878. He married the actress Angelika Dittrich soon afterwards, but she left him in 1882. In Austria the catholic marriage law did not permit a divorce, so Strauß had to give up Austrian citizenship and became a subject of the duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in order to marry his third wife Adele Deutsch. There were no children from any of his marriages.
Johann Strauß died on 3rd June 1899 in Vienna. In his honour the city if Vienna erected a monument in the city-park.
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