Rosalinde is off to the ball at the decadent Prince Orlofsky’s, masquerading as a Hungarian countess visiting Vienna incognito. Her maid Adele has snuck off to the same party, rocking a gown from the mistress’s wardrobe. And whom do they discover there but Mr. Rosalinde—sorry, Gabriel von Eisenstein—out painting the town red when by rights he should be serving time in the slammer for striking a police officer. The puppet master who is pulling their strings is Eisenstein’s lawyer Falke, once the butt of a practical joke for which his client must now pay through the nose. With its infectious Johann Strauss score, consisting not just of those fabulous waltzes of his, Die Fledermaus is the quintessential Viennese operetta. New Year’s Eve at the palatial Staatsoper is inconceivable without it. At the more popularly oriented Volksoper, not a month goes by without a performance (though seldom more than one). This year, the Theater an der Wien, where Die Fledermaus first saw the light, celebrates the 200th anniversary of Strauss’s birth with a new production. The company’ s season announcement reminds the public that Die Fledermaus erased all boundaries: “The distinctions between light theater and grand opera, entertainment and serious music, fantasy and reality, magnificent balls and rowdy gaols, aristocrats and servants were all washed away by champagne.” The show is in the hands of the company’s artistic director, the revolutionary philosopher-poet of the theater Stefan Herheim. Count on him to shake it up. —Matthew Gurewitsch