Straus, renewed the most Viennese of all genres, Operetta, with a work aimed at parodying contemporary society. To his great success, every punch Iine was...

Straus, renewed the most Viennese of all genres, Operetta, with a work aimed at parodying contemporary society. To his great success, every punch Iine was laughed at, and musical allusion understood. There was equal laughter at musical quotations from Wagner's solemnity, dragon's-blood sausage, dachshund dressed as a dragon, and parody of the Nibelung verse metre. Yet what lay, barely concealed, behind it all was also accepted: an attack on military display and Germanic arrogance.