 Viennese operetta sprang out of an attempt by Viennese composers to imitate Jacques Offenbach's works, after the highly successful performance of Le mariage aux lanternes at the Carltheater in 1858. Franz von Suppé was the most notable of these early composers, and proved instrumental in defining the new subgenre. Grove Music Online names Suppé's Das Pensionat (1860) as "the first successful attempt at a genuine Viennese operetta", and this was followed by several more successes, for Suppé, including Flotte Bursche (1863) and Die schöne Galathée (1865). However, until Fatinitza in 1876, Suppé did not write a full-length operetta, and, despite the successes of his shorter works, neither he, nor other Viennese composers such as Giovanni von Zaytz, were able to compete with Offenbach for popularity throughout the 1860s.
