Hans May

Had Hans May been born 40 years earlier, he likely would have been at the center of Viennese operetta's golden age. As it was, the Vienna-born May made his name with a string of successful songs in the 1920s in the shadow of older contemporaries such as Lehár and Kalman. May was best known in the 1920s for his songs, but he also found a career writing music for the accompaniment of silent films in Berlin. With the advent of sound films, he served as music director and composer on several early-'30s operetta-based movies. May left Germany in the mid-'30s and was based for a tim...