It’s 1904 and Selma, a wealthy but man-hating widow, is embroiled in a farcical tangle of misplaced affections and cross-dressing as rivals and relatives alike attempt to persuade her to remarry. Die Juxheirat (‘The Mock Marriage’) is set in American high society, but with its aristocrats, waltzes and mistaken identities, this Rhode Island certainly feels a lot like Ruritania. So here’s Franz Lehár, lately of the Imperial and Royal 26th Infantry Regiment, duly turning in a regulation Viennese operetta: smart as paint and ready for the stage of the Theater an der Wien, where it premiered in December 1904 and promptly flopped.

It’s hard to say why: the plot is no more complicated than many (though if you’re not a German speaker, good luck working it out from CPO’s booklet which – although the recording includes the spoken dialogue – provides texts only for the musical numbers, and no translations). Perhaps it was the large proportion of ensemble numbers; and, just 12 months before Die lustige Witwe, the melodies still don’t quite feel fully formed. But there’s still much to enjoy: a deliciously scored quartet for female voices in Act 2, a waltz song for Arthur which could almost be from Der Graf von Luxemburg and a duet that teases a very Viennese humour out of quotes from Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger.

This isn’t quite a premiere recording but so far as I can ascertain it’s the first since the reign of Franz Joseph, and, in every respect apart from the booklet, CPO has served it well. Recorded at the 2016 Lehár Festival Bad Ischl, the atmosphere of a live performance is vivid without ever being obtrusive. The casting isn’t exactly luxurious but it’s always appropriate: for the most part light, clear voices, which occasionally show the strain at high altitude (or volume) but generally sound as if they’re at ease with the idiom, and enjoying themselves. Maya Boog is a bright, sweet-sounding Selma, the tenor Jevgenij Taruntsov has an unaffected charm as her suitor Harold and Cristoph Filler is effortlessly urbane as the waggish chauffeur Philly Kaps, though you might or might not enjoy the way his final couplets have been updated with references to global terror and Donald Trump. Worse things happen at Bayreuth, I suppose.

The chorus sound very slightly reticent but the orchestral playing is a delight. The Franz Lehár-Orchester wears its Viennese style lightly, and Marius Burkert gives the whole thing a healthy glow and a spring in its step, bringing out the Jugendstil curlicues of Lehár’s often lovely harp- and woodwind-writing. Die Juxheirat is finally getting its second chance. Operetta enthusiasts shouldn’t hesitate, because it might be another century before it gets a third.