When Leo Fall’s Die Dollarprinzessin opened in Vienna in November 1907, one critic concluded that Fall ‘was almost too refined for operetta’. A backhanded compliment is still a compliment, though, and Die Dollarprinzessin took Berlin by storm, swept into the West End on the coat-tails of The Merry Widow and opened as The Dollar Princess on Broadway, where Jerome Kern was enlisted to add a little local colour. As well he might: Fall’s romantic comedy is set in a Viennese fantasy version of the USA where – just to keep things relatable for operetta regulars – the New York plutocrat John Couder makes a point of employing only penniless European aristocrats.

Fall has a lot of fun with his American setting. There’s an ‘Automobile Trio’, complete with honking motor horns, and the opening chorus features musical typewriters. The setting drives the plot, too: three impoverished Europeans (two aristos and a fake) and three wealthy Americans try to negotiate the competing claims of true love and getting very, very rich. But there’s never any doubt where Fall’s sympathies lie and musically it’s closer in spirit to Johann Strauss than to Lehár, with extended finales that rival Der Zigeunerbaron for musical sophistication. Fall’s woodwind-writing is a particular delight, from the bassoon that chuckles through the opening bars to the delicate oboe introduction to Act 2’s playful ‘Paragraph eins’ duet.

This complete recording – so far as I can tell, the only one currently in the catalogue – was made during live performances in Munich in 2012, though there’s little trace of the usual theatrical scuffles and footsteps. Ulf Schirmer and his cast clearly love the piece. Rhythms and phrasing are stylish without being mannered and no allowances need be made for any of the voices here. Christiane Libor is warm and expressive in all registers as Daisy and Ralf Simon’s tenor has a nicely bronzed tone and hint of swagger as the dispossessed Hans von Schuck. Magdalena Hinterdobler and Ferdinand van Bothmer are appropriately brighter and lighter as the comic couple Daisy and Fredy, and Angela Mehling is just unbelievable enough as the bogus countess Olga.

The chorus is notably light-footed; and if I say that Schirmer tends to lean into the more romantic and sentimental numbers at the expense of much sense of satire, well, that’s really more of an observation than a criticism in such a warm-hearted piece. Unfortunately the presentation is poor: there’s no explanation for why the order of two numbers in Act 3 has been reversed, and plotwise we get a synopsis, numbered (confusingly) by the score rather than the track-listing, but no libretto. Another black mark for a CPO operetta disc: let’s hope they do better next time.