Hi! The operetta itself is up to 2.5 - 3 hours long (for the stage with the break of 20 minutes) so naturally,to cut it down to cca.90 minutes is a bad idea - because the story is cut to a minimum or in some cases not existent at all.
The problem with operetta adaptation is as follows: 1.The Music 2.The Story 3.The "Time-frame" of the story (e.g. 18th century or now) 4.The Actors/Singers
To no.1 : The Music for the operetta always existed only as piano score,so the conductor always has to find the right instrumentation himself, based on the first performance of the operetta in 1900.The piano score was also the basis for the story and plots that were placed before the director(for the stage).So for the movie a whole new instrumentation was composed. To no.2 : The Story itself was a huge "hit" in Wienna in 1900 for the operetta(on stage) but there are no records of how it was staged.Now there are some traditions in theaters in Austria but no factual stage setting.There are also some textbooks from the time of 1900s, but again only commentaries and text variations on the libretto of the original operetta (see opera-guide.ch/libretto).And text varied from performance to performance, from production to production, from film to movie. To no.3:The "time-frame" of operetta is late 18th century, which is (in my opinion) easier to produce on film that on stage so nowadays everything is staged "as-modern" type kind of production. To no.4:To my great disappointment not singers who can act - but actors who can barely sing were singed up for this film so the commentary of the mr. jan onderwater is right on the spot.
Again is unthinkable and with a kind of degradation of the music original from Carl Zeller(the composer of the original 1900 operetta) that Cziffra indeed added the 60's music styles into this operetta.
Sorry, but just with the comic performances and bad singing you can not have a great operetta movie.
