Viennese soprano Fritzi Scheff had already built a following at the Metropolitan Opera when Victor Herbert engaged her to appear in his operettas for an astonishing $1,000 a week. She starred in four of his operettas, beginning with "Babette" (1903). "Mlle. Modiste" was the most successful of these. During the curtain calls of "Babette", she pulled Herbert on stage and planted a big, sexy kiss on his cheek. "The Kiss" generated considerable comment, and when Herbert wrote "Mlle. Modiste", two years later, he wrote one of his most famous melodies for her, "Kiss Me Again". After "Modiste" closed, Scheff toured it for years.