Ralf Benatzkys immensely popular operetta Im weissen Rossl premiered in Germany in 1930, followed by London the following year and Paris in the latter half of the decade. It made it to the US where it played under another name on the Great White Way. This echt-Austrian work had first been popularized as a play shortly before the turn of the 20th c. This 2008 staging was celebrated as a reference performance for future attempts. Directed by Rolf Langenfass and conducted by Rudolf Bibl, the cast includes Harald Serafin as the Austro-Hungarian head-of-state Kaiser Franz Joseph II.