Don Giovanni poses as Don Ottavio and rapes his fiancée Donna Anna in the Royal Palace of Naples and then flees after snuffing the candle of the king – who came running when he heard her scream. His uncle Don Pietro helps him run away – he will make sure Don Ottavio is accused. Don Giovanni leaves Naples for Castile with his valet Famiola. On the way, their boat sinks. Don Giovanni takes advantage of the opportunity to rape the shepherdess who rescued them, much to the displeasure of Famiola, who thought he had charmed her by posing as his master. In Castile, they meet Don Ottavio, who went into exile with his valet Brighella. The king of Castile promised him the commander Oliola’s (or Ogliola) daughter – who is also called Donna Anna. Don Giovanni tries to have her before his rival does, but he is caught by Oliola and kills him in a duel. Then he sees the monument the king had built in the commander’s memory, and he invites his statue over for dinner. The statue comes and invites him too. Don Giovanni goes with Famiola, and he agrees to take the statue’s hand. The statue urges him to repent, but he refuses and is taken to Hell. Brighella, who was chasing Don Giovanni, finds Famiola alone and offers him employment at the court of the king of Castile. The play ends with a scene showing Don Giovanni desperate in hell.

Glove-puppet

Not specified

Italy

Milan

Printed

Seducer

Seduction

Murder

Assassination

Shipwreck

Haughtiness

Atheism

Rape

Comical

Italian

Il castigo impensato, con Famiola disgraziato in amore

Don Pietro

Duke

Don Juan

Valet

Brighella

Commander

Anna

Sheperherdess

Final intervention of the devil

Letter

Disguise

Word for another

Comical regional accent

Murder on stage

Bawdy equivocation

Transforming scenery

Dialect

Don Giovanni il disoluto

Don Giovanni the dissolute

The Prologue begins where Molière’s play ended: Don Juan is going down the long stairway into Hell with the statue of the Commander. When he hears Sganarelle scream “My wages!”, he climbs back up to kick his servant, then comes back down. The statue of the Commander is surprised by his courage and offers to bring him back to life. But La Griffe du Diable (The Devil’s Claw) holds Don Juan back by his clothes. In the end, Don Juan is granted another ten years of life, as he makes a deal with La Griffe: during these ten years, he will continue to corrupt women and claim new victims. Ten years later, this extension is about to come to an end. Don Juan lives in Venice and believes that the Devil has forgotten about him. He is getting ready to have dinner and then go out. A puppeteer is passing in the street, and he invites Don Juan to his home, where he performs his show for him. From the glove-puppet booth, Polichinelle talks to Don Juan, who is reminiscing about the shows he saw as a child. Polichinelle kills Pierrot and Cassandre. He is bitten by a dog then attempts to seduce a doll, using Don Juan’s advice, and finally kills her. Don Juan asks that the puppeteer cut some scenes and get to the moment the Devil takes Polichinelle away. Then he provokes the puppet of the Devil by saying that he would not fear being carried off by him. The puppeteer leaves the booth, reveals that he is the Devil and sits at a table to dine with Don Juan. Don Juan enthuses over his conquests. He asks Sganarelle for the list of the women he seduced, which he then tears up. The Devil turns into a violinist and makes the scraps of paper dance: the Shadows of the one thousand and three women seduced by Don Juan arrive in gondolas. The Devil challenges Don Juan to recognise these women, but he gets them all wrong. Don Juan, who believed he had seduced and possessed all these women, realises that they had him wrapped around their fingers, and that even the tears they shed because of him were fake. He claims his victories, but he is told that he never did anything with them, and that he never knew how to love. Out of desperation, Don Juan reminds the Devil about the scale of his provocation when he gave a coin to Le Pauvre (The Beggar) “out of love for humanity”. But the Devil makes the Pauvre appear, and the latter throws the coin in Don Juan’s face and forbids him from claiming that he has embodied any kind of revolt. The Devil proves to Don Juan that he was only controlled by ribaldry, like Polichinelle. Rather than sending him to the fires of Hell, which is what the seducer proudly demands, the Devil sentences him to become a puppet in a booth.

Rostand Edmond

France

Cambo-les-Bains

Paris

Woman

Lust

Suffering

Presumption

Death

Future punishment

Evil

Ridiculous

Revolt

Love

Venice

Deal with the Devil

Lyrical

Satirical

Dramatic

Sketch by George Barbier for the Puppetteer's costume in Edmond Rostand's La Dernière Nuit de Don Juan, 1922.

French

Statue

Devil

Sganarelle

Poor

Ghost

Polichinelle

Pulcinella

Cassandre

Pierrot

Doll

Play in verse

Puppet theatre within the theatre

Disguised character (false identity)

Metonymy (mode of characterisation)

Apparition of the Devil

Apparition

Blow-with-a-stick

Crowd

Unveiling

La Dernière Nuit de Don Juan

Don Juan's Last Night

Canezou – a rich Parisian merchant – suggests that her daughter marry the son of his friend Fromaget – a young, rich, handsome and intelligent man. But the fickle girl turns down all commoner suitors. Arthur Galuchait – the son of one of Canezou’s old friends – returns to Paris after having become rich in the Indies, and he proposes to Caroline. Her father warns Arthur about his daughter’s state of mind. The young man leaves an excellent first impression on Caroline but is then thrown out on the street when she discovers that he does not have noble blood. Arthur stumbles on Oscar, another suitor rejected on the same grounds by the fair girl. They both want to teach Caroline a lesson and join up with the carpenter Billembois. Then Arthur goes to Canezou’s house dressed Indian-style to deliver a message from the king Menemetapa – the King wants his son to marry the fair Caroline, his son having fallen in love after seeing her at the Théâtre des Italiens. For this reason, the young Prince is going to grant Canezou the rank of “Grand Crustacé du royaume” (Great Crustacean of the kingdom). Canezou summons his daughter, who trembles with emotion. Oscar is disguised in the middle of a parade of servants and escorts Billembois, who is wearing a fake moustache and the costume of an oriental prince. Billembois proposes to Caroline in a speech of exotic gibberish, and she is enthralled and agrees to marry him. Billembois kisses Caroline. When Canezou and Caroline are about to sign the prenuptial agreement written by Oscar, Billembois has qualms about hurting Caroline. He reveals the fraud and removes his mask. Arthur gets angry at Billembois, who was supposed to disclose his true identity only after signing the agreement. Oscar removes his disguise too. Oscar, Arthur, Billembois and the rest of the procession leave. Cured of her dreams of greatness, Caroline admits that she is still under Billembois’s spell. Canezou is flabbergasted and keeps talking about Fromaget’s son.