Fortunately,... Andreas Mitisek came up with the idea of moving the plot to contemporary Las Vegas, making Baron Mirko Zeta, the conniving Pontevedrin ambassador to France, a Russian émigré entrepreneur who owns a cash-strapped, third-rate night club off the glittering Las Vegas strip. Turning Lehár’s libidinous aristocrats from 1905 Paris into striving, pompous émigré Russians infatuated with capitalism’s lure and the sexual freedom of today’s Vegas worked splendidly.
I admired his pole-dancing grisettes and the S&M overtones in the trio by the black-vested sopranos in the last act.