The opera was first performed at the Mannheim National Theatre on 7 June 1896 with Hugo Röhr as conductor.

[citation needed] Scene 1: Tio Lukas is picking grapes and preparing his millyard for the arrival of an unnamed Bishop and conversing with a neighbor.

The neighbor taunts Lukas, saying that the only reason people show him any favor is because he has such a pretty wife.

Lukas surprises her from the arbor and teases her about the affections of the Corregidor, magistrate of the province in which they live.

She threatens to wake Lukas (with the song "In dem Schatten meiner Locken" from the Spanisches Liederbuch), but relents when the Corregidor urges her not to.

He begins to woo her, and she seizes the opportunity to press for a favor she has obviously already requested many times: the appointment of her nephew as court notary in the nearby town of Estella.

The couple ridicules the old man, who, realizing that Lukas has heard the entire exchange, childishly vows his revenge.

Lukas and Frasquita rush off to finish their preparations, while the Corregidor sends Repela off to set his revenge plan in motion.

Scene 1: In the kitchen at the millhouse, Lukas and Frasquita are eating dinner and discussing, first teasingly, then passionately, how happy they are together.

He attempts to bribe Frasquita into bed with her nephew's appointment, and when she refuses, he threatens her with a pistol.

Scene 5: Repela enters to tend to the Corregidor, while Frasquita prepares to leave on the pretense of summoning a doctor from town.

Scene 6: The Corregidor removes his wet clothes, instructing Repela to hang them by the fire to dry.

The Corregidor, alone, sings to himself, in another song from the Spanisches Liederbuch ("Herz, verzage nicht geschwind") about the strange behaviour of women.

Scene 10: After a few moments, Manuela enters the room to ask Lukas to hire her away from the Alkalde.

He notices the Corregidor's clothes still hanging by the fire and the notary appointment on the table, and jumps to the obvious conclusion.

Seeing the Corregidor asleep on the bed, Lukas berates himself quietly in a fit of humiliation and jealousy.

The Alkalde enters with Frasquita, Tonuelo and Repela, but they do not yet notice the Corregidor, who tries to slip back into the bedroom.

Repela, making light of the situation, pretends that he is serenading the house by faking the sound of a guitar.

After everyone's true identity is revealed, the characters recap the story and explain what happened when Lukas arrived in disguise at the Corregidor's house (Wolf cut most of this section in his 1897 revision).