Don Juan is set free from hell on the condition that he leads one thousand and three women to ruin. When he comes back on earth, the seducer appoints Kasperle as his servant, under the name Casparello. The fairy Innocentia goes after them to protect the innocence of young women. The task will prove difficult. Don Juan arrives near Barcelona, where he chances on one of his old victims, Zerline, who is now old and desperately looking for a man. Don Juan and Kasperle flee as quickly as possible when they see her. Innocentia chases them relentlessly and locks Kasperle up in a cage as he sleeps, but she falls in love with him then. Don Juan comes on and frees the prisoner. In Turkey, Don Juan seduces Fatime, a slave to the cadi Mustapha. Both the master and the servant are arrested and sentenced to death. But Lucifer appears and takes Don Juan with him in hell, for having failed to seduce one hundred and three women. Innocentia also appears and takes Kasperle with her in her palace in the clouds.

String marionette

All audiences

Koch Ludwig

Germany

Munich

Printed

Manuscript

Music

Opera

Storm

Hell

Eternal punishment

Seduction

Turkey

Spain

Silliness

Old age

Despotism

Escape

Cage

Bird

Love

Innocence

Fantasy

Parodistic

German

Kasperles Gefahren

Don Juan

Kasperl

Fairy

Clerk

Zerlina

Slave

Servant

Devil

Apparition

Final intervention of the devil

Inn scene

Allegory

Magic act

Bawdy equivocation

Comic equivocation

Glory

Love story

Macaronism

Aria

Ghost

Dialect as a social marker

Versified passages

Deus ex machina

Confinement

Parody of formal language

Pact with the devil

Don Juan's zweites Leben

The Second Life of Don Juan

A Ramoneur (Chimney sweep) falls in the cauldron of the Cuisinière du Roi Noir (The Black King’s Cook), an imposter who murdered his brother the Roi d’Azur (Azure King) and locked up his niece the Princesse d’Azur (Azure Princess) in a cage. Doomed to be cooked in the oven, the Ramoneur is freed by the Corbeau du Roi (King’s Crow) who tells him that the key to the cage where the Princesse is locked up is hidden at the back of the oven. When the Roi Noir discovers that the Ramoneur is still alive, he throws him in the well. The Corbeau asks the Ramoneur to retrieve the Roi d’Azur’s sword at the bottom of the well and to kill the Roi Noir in order to free the Princesse: the Roi Noir threatens the Princesse to kill her if she does not marry him. The Corbeau warns the Roi Noir of the Ramoneur’s intentions, and says that he is invincible; the Roi tells the Corbeau where the royal treasure is hidden to bribe the Ramoneur. The Ramoneur refuses the money, cuts the Roi Noir’s head and frees the Princesse, who wants to marry him in return. The Corbeau lives a happy life with them.

Glove-puppet

France

Paris

Usurper

Cauldron

Oven

Well

Sword

Treasure

Comical

Farcical

French

Chimney sweeper

King

Regicide

Black Man

Cook

Baker

Princess

Raven

Off-stage voice

Fall of a character

Hidden character

Blow

Chase

Character covered in flour

Talking animal

Burnt character

Characters bumping into each other

Fainting

Headbutt

Character dragged by their feet

Character thrown in a well

Off-stage scream

Sword thrust

Stuck character

La Fortune du ramoneur

The chimney sweep’s fortune

Marianne – the wife of a poor lumberjack – sends her starving children Hansel and Grethel in the woods, so that they pick some berries. But the children are captured by the cannibalistic naturalist Fleischmann, at the same time as the travelling tailor Kasperl Larifari, who believes he will find bed and board at his house. They are locked inside chicken coops and fattened. Kasperl is enraged. To calm him down, Fleischmann allows him outside the cage to drink some wine with him. He intends on eating him right after. But they both get drunk, while the professor’s maid, Katharine, helps the children escape and reports the cannibal to the police. Kasperl takes advantage of the general confusion to escape too. The professor chases him and then gives up. He wants to find the children but falls asleep in the end, exhausted. Kasperl finds him and sews the two legs of his pants together. Eventually, the court bailiff arrives with the children’s father, Peter. When they find Fleischmann, he is unable to move, and Peter kills him with an axe. The children come out of hiding and, at the end of the play, Kasperl declares that wickedness has been punished, virtue rewarded and that they all need to go to an inn now.

Young audiences

Pocci Franz von

Cannibalism

University

Natural sciences

Philosophy

Tale

Poverty

Misery

Forest

Justice

Hunger

Drunkard

Drunkenness

Cruelty

Perversity

Burlesque

Title page illustrated by the author in the original collection

Der Menschenfresser

Teacher

Night

Moon

Murder on stage

Animated natural element

Caricature

Song

Hansel und Grethel

Hansel and Gretel

Kasperl is buried in debt and runs away from the city. He believes that there is no other solution but to kill himself. But when the Devil arrives and drives him to hang himself, Kasperl realises that his time has not come yet. At this exact moment, gunshots are heard. The hunter, Hasenmajer, thinking that he was shooting a billy goat, almost killed Kasperl. In order to be forgiven, he invites his “victim” to the inn to get a drink. Spitzer, the school teacher, arrives at the inn with terrible news: a Turko has escaped from the convoy of prisoners. The innkeeper Krüglhuber refuses to believe it, but the waitress, Kathi, confirms that the Turko has been seen devouring a little child. Krüglhuber is terrified and demands that all doors be closed. The huntsman comes in and announces that he has captured the Turko and wants his reward, 400 gulden. The innkeeper accepts, but wants to see the prisoner first. Hasenmajer shows him Kasperl disguised as a Turko, locked in a cage. Krüglhuber is happy: he can announce that there is a new attraction in his inn. But Kasperl gets out of the cage and locks the innkeeper inside. The latter realises that the “Turko” is none other than his debtor. Kasperl offers him a deal: either the innkeeper agrees to forget about his debts in exchange for his freedom, or he will have to replace the “Turko”. Krüglhuber has no other choice but to accept Kasperl’s offer.

Don Juan's zweites Leben

La Fortune du ramoneur

Hansel und Grethel

Der gefangene Turko

oder Ein Kasperlstreich aus dem Jahre 1870