It was an entertainment unto itself in the 1920s: the Broadway Operetta. And its twin kings were Sigmund Romberg and Rudolf Friml, middle-European émigrés who extended the life of the genre by a good ten years. Of the two, Romberg contributed the most enduring examples to the repertoire.
   The Desert Song, The New Moon, and The Student Prince are still performed today (though no longer with such frequency), and still enchant those willing to surrender themselves to the charm, the rich, refulgent melodies, and the exotic settings that Broadway audiences adored nearly eighty years ago. The Desert Song marked Romberg's first collaboration with lyricists Oscar Hammerstein II and Otto Harbach. Very much a product of its time, it cashed in on the popularity of the hit Rudolph Valentino vehicles The Sheik and Son of the Sheik as well as such current events as the Rift uprising in French Morocco and the achievements of T.E. Lawrence. The swashbuckling, intensely romantic plot centered on the Red Shadow, a masked Frenchman who switches sides and leads the Moroccan Rifts in revolt against his fellow French. The Shadow also turns out to be living a double life: he is Pierre Birabeau, the nerdy son of the French troops' commanding general. In his Red Shadow guise, he abducts Margot, the fiancée of the general's most trusted officer. Margot finds herself irresistibly drawn to the Shadow, but the General seeks out the Shadow and challenges him to a duel. Recognizing his father, Pierre refuses to fight. Although he is drummed out of the Riffs due to perceived cowardice, he ultimately crashes Margot's wedding and reveals his true identity to her. Saved from a loveless marriage, Margot realizes that Pierre is indeed the man for her, and off they ride together into the desert sands.
   It was all fabulous, campy hokum, and audiences adored it. Three film versions followed in 1929, 1943 and 1953, with World War II and the Nazis being written into the 1943 version. An unsuccessful Broadway revival was attempted in 1973, but the New York City Opera mounted it with great panache for several seasons during the 1980s.