Paul Abraham | Composers

Paul Abraham was born in Apatin (Woiwodina) on November 2, 1892. He did his studies at the Budapest Convervatory and became Kapellmeister of the Budapest Hauptstädtisches Operettentheater, where he took a fancy to the so called "light genre" and developed a talend for musical comedy. In 1930 "Victoria und ihr Husar" was his breakthrough in Budapest and also in Leipzig.
In those days, Berlin was the center of operetta and revue productions, so Abraham moved there. His following stage wors "Die Blume von Hawaii" (1931) and "Ball im Savoy" (1932) became very popular.
Hitler's takeover forced Paul Abraham to emigrate. He first went to Vienna and Budapest, later even to Cuba and the USA. After struggling along as nightclub pianist for some time, he was taken to sanitorium as a broken man. Even moving to Hamburg did not ameliorate his condition. He spend his last years in Hamburg, where he died on May 6, 1960.