After the extraordinary successes of La belle Hélène (1864) and La Vie Parisienne (1866), the triumvirate Offenbach/Meilhac/Halévy reached the zenith of its fame in 1867 with its Grand Duchesse de Gérolstein - but only after drastic deletions and revisions. No other Offenbachiade suffered so greatly from cuts made in order to accommodate the popular taste of the time.

As a result, the grand romantic opéra-bouffe full of abysses and double entendres mutated into the military parody as which it...