Vienna,1874. The capital of the mighty Austrian-Hungarian Empire is plunged in a bleak financial crash which followed the brilliant International Fair in 1873. In the different social classes, everyone tries to survive as he can, inventing practical solutions or searching for escape and oblivion in entertainment and drink. In his absolute prime, the 50-year old J.Strauss conceives the spirit of his time and illustrates it excellently in a new, spicy operreta, titled ''Die Fledermaus''. Based on a French vaudeville the plot narrates a typical risky story of a nearly conjugal infidelity against a background of return for a carnival farce which has taken place in the past.A bourgeois man, whom his wife is beseted by a lover, is going to be imprisoned for a petty offence. However, as the same night the couple is invited in the prince's masked-ball, every one takes advantage of the opportunity to escape and enjoy himself. An old friend is eager to arrange a delay of the confinement of the husband who feigns leaving for jail, the wife organizes to meet her lover while it is given to the maid the much desired permission to leave. However, the plans of all go wrong from the beginning: the lover goes to prison by a misunderstanding, while the couple and the maid arrive separately to the ball, where, without knowing it, end in flirting one another behind the masks. In the end all of them meet again unexpectedly on jail.There, not without almost unpleasant surprises, many misunderstandings are solved and the man and wife reconciliate with each other as it is revealed that the whole thing was put-up as a recompense of an old carnival farce between the husband and his friend. (Giannis Svolos)