"The history of music is not simply the history of masterpieces… Posterity is not always fair and can be fickle, and our keenest hope is that the curiosity of the reader will be attracted to a number of works that merit more than a passing reference in music history." – Vincent Giroud
Here is an opera to warm the heart! Class war in Eastern Europe; a proletariat hero; a peasants' revolution; the nobility banished; the violent death of a woman seduced by luxury; and happiness in a humble cottage - all inspired by the inventor of masochism.
“C’est tout-à-fait ça," said Bismarck, after seeing Offenbach’s satire of war and petty German princedoms.
With some hot gypsies thrown in.
The Opera Scribe 