The fisherman Colin finds a golden vase in his nets. The genie Elemaliga is imprisoned inside it. As a gesture of gratitude for having delivered him, Elemaliga bestows magical powers to Colin. With this magical help, Colin triumphs over his rival Philippe, recovers the fortune he should have inherited and marries Lisbette.

Body shadows

Not specified

Marion de Salins Pierre

France

Printed

Swindling

Wedding

Love

Fishing

Seduction

Inheritance

Fantasy

Comical

L'Heureuse Pêche, cover page

French

Comédie pour les ombres à scènes changeantes

Fisherman

Peasant

Genie

Apparition of a genius

Disappearance

Love rivalry

Song

Invisible character

Final song

L'Heureuse Pêche

The Happy Catch

Casperl inherits money from his neighbor Frau Bas, who recently died: it's a fortune. He passes a miserable evening, tormented by the idea that people are plotting to steal his money. He even cries out about a fire. The next day, Grethel buys the latest style of toilet, hires a cook… Casperl goes out to drink at the tavern with his friend, the hunter Tomerl. However, when he returns, the notary Stahlfeder is there to announce to the cleaners that Madame Casperl's purchases and the settling of debts with the tavern have exhausted the fortune of Frau Bas—there is nearly nothing left. Casperl throws out the notary and police chief Schnuffler, who came with a fine for nighttime disturbances. He then scarfs down a plate of Knödel that his cook prepared while declaring that he doesn't need money as long as he keeps his good spirits.

String marionette

Young audiences

Pocci Franz von

Germany

Munich

Burial

Coffee

Grief

Beer

Wealth

Fear

Night

Paranoia

Conflagration

Fashion

Knödel

Satirical

Farcical

German

Zwischenspiel in zwei Abteilungen

Kasperl

Madame Kasperl

Thomerl

Hunter

Fireman

Notary

Police officer

Cook

Shopkeeper

Night watchman

Parody of formal language

Off-stage voice

Chorus

Sung scenes

Brawl

Dance

Current affairs

Die Erbschaft

L'Héritage

On a rainy night, Pulcinella comes back home, prepares his bed and lies down in it. He has just fallen asleep when his friend Felice knocks on his door and asks for shelter from the storm. Felice has just seen Gilda, his fiancée, with a bersagliere (a soldier from a special corps of the Italian army) at the Teatro di San Carlo – the opera of Naples. Overcome with jealousy, he decides to go home but he cannot find his keys. After listening to his friend, Pulcinella offers him a chair to sleep in for the night. Felice cannot fall asleep and starts singing and screaming. Then he imagines that he is fighting the bersagliere and he throws all of Pulcinella’s furniture out of the window, including the bed. Gilda arrives at this moment. She explains that the bersagliere is her brother. She has come to tell Felice that he is going to inherit a large sum of money. Out of joy, Felice promises two millions liras to Pulcinella, who shouts: “per te sarò un principe, per lei sarò un signore, per questo colto pubblico umile servitore” (“for you, I will be a prince, for her I will be a lord, and for this cultured audience, an humbler servant”).

Ferrajolo Pasquale

Italy

Naples

Treason

Friendship

Italian

ovvero Temporale a Mezzanotte

Pulcinella

The Interpreter

Fiancé

Felice Sciosciammocca

Fiancée

Thunderbolt

Sound of rain

Misunderstanding

Sleeping character

Word for another

Word warping

Address to the public

Throwing objects

'Na nuttata 'e guai

A night of troubles or Storm at midnight

Guignol’s aunt has recently died. She has left him “L’Auberge des Adrets”, a dilapidated inn set remotely in the mountains. Guignol’s cousin, Martin, is staying there and waiting for Guignol to arrive, but he is uneasy: it is rumoured that the building is haunted, and a hiding place for outlaws on the run. Guignol arrives on Christmas Eve and Martin returns to the village. While Guignol inspects the place, Gnafron and Cadet walk into the inn – unbeknown to Guignol. The two friends have come to rehearse a horror scene for a film on a thieving gang that used to steal from isolated houses and kill their residents. Guignol tries to sleep on an old mattress, but he is repeatedly bothered – by a mouse, a spider, a cat, then two snakes, all living in the shack. Gnafron and Cadet rehearse the scene in which they kill the innkeeper. Guignol hears them and believes that they want to murder him. In the dark, he then pretends to be a ghost, to scare them away. Gnafron and Cadet are scared at first, but they finally recognise their friend Guignol. The three of them make a toast and wish one another a merry Christmas.

Glove-puppet

Lyon

Christmas Eve

Phantom

Snake

Robber

Fake ghost

Talking cinema

Haunted house

Christmas

Fantastic

ou l'Auberge des fantômes

Guignol

Gnafron

Cadet

Monologue

Rehearsal (play within a play)

Dramatic irony

Disguise

Comedy of language

Le Noël de Guignol

Guignol’s Christmas or The Inn of the ghosts

The opera is made up of two tableaux. In the first, El Titetero (the puppeteer) invites the audience to watch the farce to come. In the second, he provides a brief summary of what has happened earlier and reveals the scheme that is being plotted by two characters – Doneta and la Tía (her aunt, who is played by a puppet with the baritone voice of le Titerero’s actor). The two women are planning to trick a third character – Lindísimo. All through the opera, the puppets are the singers’ doubles: a dialogue takes place between the two levels of the opera. In the first scene, Doneta complains to the Tía about the wishes expressed in the testament of her very wealthy uncle – doctor Cerote. For her to receive her inheritance, he said she must marry a vain and elegant man: his nephew Lindísimo. Lindísimo does not wish to marry Doneta either, and he devises a plan to avoid marrying her. On their first encounter, he explains that don Cerote’s widow also died and that she had made modifications to his testament: Lindísimo will only receive his share of the inheritance if he does not marry Doneta. La Tía and Doneta are distraught, as they believe they have been disinherited. After Titerero’s speech at the beginning of the second tableau, the Bridge of Sights appears in the hand-puppet booth. It is first crossed by Lindísimo’s puppet then, without his noticing it, by Doneta’s, who hides behind a venetian mask. In a lavish salon, Lindísimo writes notes that he then distributes in town: he asks to meet with the most beautiful woman in Venice. Doneta finds one of these notes. She follows the Tía’s advice, puts on a mask and goes meet Lindísimo. They both engage in a game of seduction after which Lindísimo succumbs to Doneta’s advances and proposes to her. Doneta removes her mask and, despite being taken by surprise, Lindísimo accepts this outcome. In the end, le Titerero asks the following question: “What is best in love? Knowledge, innocence or experience?”. The three characters reply in unison: “The most charming one is the one wknows the most”. The libretto ends with an unspoken sentence, which can only be discovered upon on reading it: “And we are almost certain that once this little comedy is finished, they will marry, and she will cheat on him.”

Spain

Madrid

Arranged marriage

Trickery

Venice

Puppeteer

Narcissism

Tomás Borrás, Fantochines. Madrid: CIAP, 1931 (cover page)

Spanish

Masked characters

Reciter

Aria

Instrumental tune

Dialogue between actor and puppet

Fantochines

Small string puppets

Christine is in love with Heini, a law student, but her father has promised to give her in marriage to the apothecary, a character so conceited and ridiculous that she cannot tolerate him. Heini resolves to leave for Leipzig in order to finish law school and he makes Christine promise that she will resist the apothecary’s advances in the meantime. The apothecary, however, learns that an uncle has bequeathed his fortune to him before he passed away, provided that he would marry his niece: he easily forgets about Christine. But his baseless allegations about Christine offend her father, and, as he is furious with the apothecary, he calls Heini back in order to organise the wedding of the young lovers.

Keller Therese

Switzerland

Typewriting

Embroidery

Woman

Forced marriage

Silver wedding

Student

Impossible love

Bourgeoisie

Greek mythology

Silliness

Ignorance

Fatuity

Cloister

Pharmacy

Vilification

Backbiting

Father

Apothecary

Caricature

Apparition

Speechless character

Letter

Hidden character

Love story

Plot twist

Ridiculous fight

Der Apotheker

The Apothecary

Pulcinella and his wife Rosella quarrel. Pulcinella cannot provide his wife with food, despite promising, before they married, that she would never be in need. They only survive thanks to the help of a rich uncle of the wife. Their son arrives in the middle of the quarrel, and he is also starving. He goes with his mother to the rich uncle, who is very sick. At this moment, Pasquariello – Pulcinella’s sidekick – arrives and recounts how he was evicted from his house by the landlord, slept in the street with dogs and, in the morning, was taken by a dogcatcher. Now, he hopes to eat with Pulcinella, but his friend has not eaten for several days. Don Giannattasio Brasciolone, the landlord, comes to ask for the seven months of unpaid rent. Pulcinella pretends to be dead and the landlord leaves. When Pulcinella’s wife comes back crying, the two friends believe that she is lamenting the death of her husband. In fact, Rosella is crying because her rich uncle has just died. Pulcinella receives an inheritance – the head of a Mercury containing a bag full of gold coins. In the end, Pulcinella is a millionaire and pays his rent for the entire year.