Micaela Baranello’s The Operetta Empire argues that if we want to understand Central European modernity in the early twentieth century, then we need to take operetta seriously. As she notes, the period from the premiere of Die lustige Witwe in 1905 to the end of World War II is generally written off as Viennese operetta’s “Silver Age.” (Baranello’s study, however, only extends to the early 1930s with some consideration through to 1939.) This is an enduring post-World War II critical conceit whose idealization of Die Fledermaus, Offenbach, and Gilbert and Sullivan as the Golden Age of operetta at the expense of the later Silver Age follows well-worn scholarly prejudices. Of course, for many scholars and critics, the whole genre of operetta was suspect due to its undeniable participation in the capitalist market and its incompatibility with teleological narratives of music and theater history that prioritized harmonic, formal, or dramaturgical “innovation.” But where some critics sought to redeem Golden Age operetta by reading its socio-cultural satire as subversive and progressive, Silver Age operetta seemed inescapably mired in sentimentality and nostalgia. Without denying this sentimentality or nostalgia, Baranello shows us that the creation and reception of Silver Age operetta was also a site where early twentieth-century Viennese viewers wrestled with the social and political changes brought by modernity: industrialization, urbanization, migration, war, nationalism, mass media, changes in gender roles and political power, and so on.

For a slim volume, this book thus has a lot of work to do: It needs to convince musicologists and cultural historians that Silver Age Viennese operetta is worth studying, but it also needs to introduce a substantial amount of background information on musical works and their creators that are not well known and about which there is little to be found in standard reference works. Baranello neatly treads a difficult path between, on the one hand, providing necessary background, context, and introductions to the operettas, their creators, actors, performers, and critics, and on the other hand, diving into what the creation and reception of these works can tell us about music and cultural history in early twentieth-century Vienna.

The book’s structure is both topical and chronological. The first chapter focuses on Die lustige Witwe (1905) and how this evergreen’s runaway success established the model for Silver Age operetta. The remaining chapters then turn to specific aspects of modernity confronting early twentieth-century Vienna. In chapter 2, this is labor, urbanization, and changing roles for women; and in chapter 3, migration and imaginaries of racialized Others. Chapter 4 brings the reader to World War I and the ways that wartime operetta could be quite ambivalent about the war, especially regarding the experiences of the women left at home, who now made up most of their audience. Chapter 5 then examines how exoticist operettas after the war helped the Viennese to orient themselves in their new geopolitical situation, as well as how these operettas simultaneously highlighted the artificiality of their exotic elements. Finally, chapter 6 addresses how operetta in the later 1920s responded to the rise of film, jazz, and dance revues with looser plots, greater visual spectacle, and the adoption of some jazz elements, while simultaneously leaning into nostalgia even more. The chapter ends in what could have been a separate conclusion that considers the state of operetta performance today, expanding its scope beyond just the Silver Age Viennese repertoire.

Baranello puts musical examples and analysis of musical elements (form, harmony, stylistic and other extra-musical references) at the center of discussions of each operetta. Readers approaching the book from musicology will recognize this as a powerful polemic that the music of these operettas can and should be taken seriously—indeed, I expect many a musicologist will easily accept that the cultural meaning of operetta is important, but may struggle to imagine how “the music itself” is worth closer attention. Nevertheless, readers approaching the book from fields other than musicology should not be intimidated by the musical examples or Baranello’s discussion of them; the main take-aways and how they fit into the larger argument are always clear.

A short review leaves little space to dive into specific questions or quibbles, but reflecting on the book as a whole, I came away, as I imagine every reader will, wanting more. For some, it might be on race and representations of otherness; for others, it might be on Baranello’s tantalizing references to these operettas’ adaptation and reception in other cities; for still others, it might be operetta’s relationship to film, the recording industry, and media more generally. And these are hardly the only topics calling out for more work. This is not to fault Baranello. What she has done in this book is to demonstrate that if we want to understand the cultural history of early twentieth-century Central Europe, we need to take operetta seriously. There’s still plenty of work to be done, and this book will be a foundational resource for it.