Intended for performance at the Kärntnertortheater in Vienna in 1823, Fierrabras was never staged there. The work includes spoken German dialogue, speech over music or melodrama, following the 18th century development of the genre with Georg Benda, and good music in a shaky and prolix plot.

Set at the court of Charlemagne, Schubert's opera deals with the love of the young Moorish prince of the title for Emma and his imprisonment through the agency of her accepted lover, Eginhard. There is a parallel romance between the Moorish princess Florinda and the Christian champion Roland. All ends in apparent happiness, with Fierrabras now a Christian knight under Charlemagne and the other pairs of lovers united after all the vicissitudes of battle and imprisonment.