Czech composer Jaromír Weinberger (1896-1967) scored his biggest success with the opera Schwanda the Bagpiper, from which the polka and fugue immediately became and remained quite popular. He wrote music to various Shakespeare plays, other operas, including one based on Bret Harte's The Outcasts of Poker Flat, and the ballet Saratoga. Weinberger emigrated from Czechoslovakia to the United States, settling in New York City in 1939.