Look, I don't want to alarm anyone, but the plain fact of the matter is, that title is very close to "wiener butt," making it perhaps the most appropriate operetta for twelve-year-old boys. Of course, that just means "Viennese Blood" in German, which is less childish but much more sinister. I don't know!
Well, this is a Strauss pastiche rather than an original work; Strauss himself authorized it and left it at that (it also includes some tunes by his bro Josef). It wasn't performed until after his death. An unhappy story: at its first production it wasn't a big success, and the impresario who first staged it, Jann Jauner, ended up shooting himself when it failed to recoup costs. He might've waited a little, as it caught on quickly enough and became one of Strauss' most popular stage works, original or not. There are a bunch of different performance available.
This is closer to Die Fledermaus than Der Zigeunerbaron in tone--ie, more on the frivolous side. You know, operetta is generally lighter, but there's light and light--Zigeunerbaron has more of an actual story. It's 1814 or 15, and this Congress of Vienna is going on. That is the backdrop. There's this Count Zedlau who has a wife, Gabriele, and also a mistress, Franziska, and he's trying for another mistress, Pepi. Franziska knows he's married but draws the line at having to compete with a second mistress. Gabriele, naturally, is against the whole thing, and Pepi is, I suppose, undecided. There's also Zedlau's servant Josef and a Prince Ypsheim-Gindelbach. The main thing about him is that he's not from Vienna so he speaks a different dialect of German and there are linguistic hijinx totally lost on the non-Deutschophones in the audience ("Deutschophone" is a word now). You might be able to get some of the idea across via some more sophisticated subtitles, but that is not a thing that is happening here! Anyway, there are complications and misunderstandings and blah, and finally the Count ends up back with his wife, the Prince ends up with Franziska, and Pepi ends up with Josef. Given the general tenor of the thing, it's pretty hard to imagine these pairings being stable, but...take it! You must!
If I had to cavil, I'd say that all this stuff about "Viennese blood," even though more or less meant figuratively, is a bit uncomfortable in light of what was coming in thirty-ish years (a film version of this was one of the most popular movies of Nazi Germany). But, obviously, that's not its fault. Given that the arrangers had their pick of Strauss' music to rummage through for this, it's no surprise that it's gonna be pretty fun. There are definitely places where this will sound familiar to you even if you don't know you know it. That's just the way it goes! Obviously worth seeing, though not, in my opinion, a stone-cold classic--I liked all three of the operettas I saw in that last triptych more than I did this.
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