Sigmund Romberg teamed up with Oscar Hammerstein II on The New Moon (1928). Although it was an instant hit on Broadway, it got into such trouble during tryouts on the road that the producers, Laurence Schwab and Frank Mandel, closed it down and completely refashioned it, asking Romberg and Hammerstein to revise the score and add several new songs. Their instincts proved right: the new show was a hit, the new score was a hit, and The New Moon went on to become the only play of its season to run over 500 performances.
   The New Moon's plot transported audiences back to 1778 New Orleans. Robert Misson, a French nobleman turned revolutionary, escapes death by posing as a servant to Monsieur Beaunoir, a rich shipowner, and boarding his boat the New Moon on its voyage to Louisiana. On the way, Robert tails in love with Beaunoir's beautiful daughter Marianne. Unfortunately Duval, the ship's captain, also has his eyes on Marianne. He recognizes Robert in his disguise and exposes him. The Vicomte Ribaud, charged by the King with finding Robert and returning him to France, contrives to make Robert think that it is Marianne who has betrayed him. Robert is to be sent back to France on the New Moon and Marianne, feigning a desire to be with Captain Duval, boards the ship as well in order to be near Robert and protest her innocence. Robert, however, will have nothing to do with her. He manages to stir up a successful mutiny and the crew lands on an island, where they establish a free government. A ship arrives bringing welcome news of the French Revolution, and at the same time, Robert learns of Marianne's innocence.
   Despite The New Moon's success, it became Sigmund Romberg's last solid Broadway hit. it also signaled the end of the era of the great Broadway operettas. The genre's sweet, brief five-year heyday had seen such crowd-pleasers as Rose-Mocie, The Student Prince. The Vagabond King and The Desert Song in addition to The New Moon. But they would now be replaced in the public's taste with the sassier, jazzier rhythms of what we now know as musical comedy. Romberg and Hammerstein went straight to Hollywood to cash in on the All Talking! All Singing! All Dancing! phase of the early talkies. Romberg stayed on; but Hammerstein would eventually return to New York and help re-shape the very fabric of the American musical. His most glorious years were ahead of him.