BK, let me recommend two other Straus operettas I think you would like.
Der Tapfere Soldat/The Gallant Soldier is actually a good adaptation of Shaw's comedy Arms and the Man. It was not a big hit in Germany or Vienna at the time, but it got an English adaptation under the title The Chocolate Soldier and became a success in England and the USA, partly because Shaw insisted it be billed as a parody of his play; he never made a royalty on it because he foolishly refused to be associated with the actual piece. I grew up with the RCA recording of the English version with Risë Stevens in the dreadful Stanislaus Stange translation from 1909 that gives operetta translation a bad name ("How noble is this hero mine!"). The cast is good, but to make Stevens and Robert Merrill the leads, the music isa lowered to mezzo-baritone ranges, and I think Stevens sounds more like Raina's mother.
Jo Sullivan Loesser and Peter Palmer, who played the secondary couple, would have been perfect in the Stevens-Merrill parts in the original keys.
The Merry Nibelungs: Oscar Straus and Co. do in Wagner's Ring Cycle. I would love to see it staged.
