Johann Strauss the Younger had already cemented his reputation as The Waltz King by the time he wrote his operetta Die Fledermaus (The Bat), and sometimes called The Revenge of the Bat. In all, Strauss composed some five hundred dances, including one of the most famous pieces of classical music ever written, The Blue Danube. 

Everything that happens in Die Fledermaus stems from Dr Falke’s decision to embarrass his friend Eisenstein and contrives to expose both Eisenstein’s and his wife Rosalinde’s taste for extramarital affairs by arranging for both of them to attend a ball in disguise. Falke, with Prince Orlofsky's permission, is using the ball as a way of getting revenge on Eisenstein. Some time before, after a costume-party, Eisenstein had abandoned Falke, very drunk and dressed in a bat-costume, in the centre of town, exposing him to ridicule the next day.  The Bat becomes the comedy of frivolity, infidelity and mistaken identity: Eisenstein unwittingly flirts with his own wife while her lover languishes in prison. 

By the end of the piece, the characters reveal who they really are and the great farce ends up with a happy ending for all