Biography
Leon Jessel was born in Stettin in 1871. From 1891 he worked as a conductor in several German cities before settling in Berlin in 1911, where he turned increasingly to composing operettas; in 1915 he was among the founders of the performing-rights society GEMA. His greatest success came in 1917 with the operetta 'Schwarzwaldmädel', which reached around 6,000 performances within a decade. His instrumental piece 'The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers' became internationally known. Although Jessel had converted to Christianity in 1894, he was expelled from the Reich Music Chamber in 1937 because of his Jewish descent; he was arrested by the Gestapo in 1941 and died in January 1942 at Berlin's Jewish Hospital from the effects of his mistreatment.
On Stagelog
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