"The Gypsy Baron", although an operetta, was Johann Strauss's attempt to write a work with more musical depth. Though still indisputably an operetta, with its spoken dialogue, frothy waltzes and a comic story of a dispossessed Hungarian landowner's son who hopes to reclaim his land from a band of Gypsies, Strauss pushed this operetta in the direction of opera. By writing a comedy set in Hungary and Vienna, Strauss may have been hedging his bets in both halves of the old dual monarchy. But with its melodic spiciness and dramatic sweep, he might just have created his single most accomplished stage work.