1. A living room
2. A ball room
3. Office of prison-governor

• Von Eisenstein, tenor or high baritone
• Rosalinde, his wife, soprano
• Frank, bass-baritone
• Orlofsky, mezzo-soprano (trouser role)
• Alfred, tenor
• Falke, baritone
• Adele, colorature-soprano
• Frosch, spoken rôle

The main task of the chorus is in act II, at Orlofsky’s ball. It also appears in the finale of act III. So its contribution is limited, but what it has to sing is of great beauty.

Die Fledermaus presents a wealth of melody and harmony unparalleled in light opera and is deservedly nicknamed the Queen of operettas. Many of its numbers, both orchestral and vocal, have achieved lasting popularity. It is a masterpiece of music.

A wealthy gentleman named Von Eisenstein is to serve a prison-sentence for contempt of the law. His friend Falke persuades him to attend a masked ball at the palace of the Russian prince Orlofsky on the eve of the day when he is due to report at the prison. After he has left home his wife Rosalind is visited by her former lover Alfred. Unfortunately, the governor of the prison has decided to go and fetch Eisenstein at his home and personally accompany him to prison. When he finds Rosalind in the company of Alfred, he assumes that the latter is Rosalind’s husband. In order to avoid a scandal Alfred decides to take Eisenstein’s place in prison. At the ball all the main persons (Alfred excepted) meet: Rosalind disguised as a Hungarian countess, the Eisensteins’ servant Adele dressed up in a gown of her lady’s, the Governor as Chevalier Chargrin and Eisenstein as Marquis De Renard. All this has been plotted by Falke in order to take revenge on Eisenstein, who once, after a masked ball, abandoned him in a public park dressed up as a bat. Eistenstein is furious when he finds out that his wife has received Alfred but is made to eat humble pie when she shows him the watch that the 'Hungarian countess' has tricked out of him at the Orlofsky ball. The amusing plot is derived from a play by Jacques Offenbach’s librettists Meilhac and Halévy.