Sigmund Romberg Biography

Sigmund Romberg, born Romberg Zsigmond (July 29, 1887, Nagykanizsa ? November 9, 1951, New York, New York) was an American composer best known for his operettas.

He was born to a Jewish family in the West-Hungarian provincial town of Nagykanizsa during the Austro-Hungarian K.u.K. Monarchy period. He went to Vienna to study engineering, but also took composition lessons while there. He moved to the United States in 1909 and, after a brief stint working in a pencil factory, was employed as a pianist in cafés. He eventually founded his own orchestra and published a few songs, which, despite their limited success, brought him to the attention of the Shubert brothers, who in 1914 hired him to write music for their Broadway theatre shows. That year he wrote his first significant operetta, The Whirl of the World.

Romberg's adaptation of melodies by Franz Schubert for Blossom Time (1921, produced in the UK as Lilac Time) was a great success. He subsequently wrote his best-known operettas, The Student Prince (1924), The Desert Song (1926) and The New Moon (1928), which are in a style similar to the Viennese operettas of Franz Lehár. He also wrote Rosalie (1928) together with George Gershwin. His later works, such as Up in Central Park (1945), are closer to the American musical in style, but they were less successful. Romberg also wrote a number of film scores and adapted his own work for film.

Romberg died in 1951 in New York City and was interred in the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.

Romberg was the subject of the 1954 Stanley Donen-directed film Deep in My Heart, in which he was portrayed by José Ferrer.