BK, after your foray into the operettas of Andre Messager, I'm going to suggest my favorite post-Offenbach operetta, Hans le joueur de flûte, a takeoff on the Pied Piper of Hamelin. The town burgers of Milkatz care only about commerce and making money, and the burgermaster's daughter Lisbeth loves Yoris, a poo poet pushing the burgers to reinstate the town's arts festival and subsidize the arts. The burgermaster therefore hates him and promises Lisbeth in marriage to a rich old friend. Enter Hans the flutist, who plays his flute and all the cats in the town run to the river and drown and the rats invade the grainaries. Hans will only get rid of the rats if the town burgers reinstate the arts and bring back the festival. Using the trick out of The Merry Wives of Windsor, Yoris marries Lisbeth and the rich old man marries a doll.
It's a wonderful score. The recording is from a French radio broadcast from the 1960s, I believe, and it features the great French baritone Michel Dens as Hans. Yjer original Hans in 1906 was Jean Perier, who created the leading roles of Florestan in Messager's Veronique and Peleas in Debussy's Peleas and Melisande.
