Don Quixote takes up his role as a wandering knight and asks Sancho Pança (Sancho Panza) to help prepare before they leave, while his niece and the childminder beg him to stay. Sancho Pança gives instructions for his will and bids farewell to his wife and daughter. Don Quixote declares his love to a woman peasant whom he believes is Dulcineia under a spell. He mistakes comedians for giants, but the fight is avoided thanks to Sancho Pança’s donkey. In a forest, they meet Sansão Carrasco (Sansón Carrasco), who pretends to be a wandering knight. Don Quixote challenges him to a duel and unhorses him. Then, he attacks a caged lion, kills it and declares that he will now have to be called the Knight of the Lions. When he learns that a wandering knight is imprisoned in the cave of Montesinos, Don Quixote descends into it and tries to remove a spell from Lord Montesinos and from Belerma, the lady of the knight Durorante. The earth shakes and he is carried into the air with Sancho Pança. Back in the forest, Don Quixote believes that Dulcineia has been changed into Sancho Pança and declares his love to him; Sancho threatens to kick him until Don Quixote’s illusion is broken. The muse Calíope (Calliope) comes down from a cloud and asks Don Quixote to fight the bad poets. Don Quixote chases them off. Apolo (Apollo) offers Pancho’s son, who is a poet, to join the Parnassus. After embarking on a boat, Don Quixote and Sancho are shipwrecked. They are taken in a palace. Sancho asks for the island promised by his master. A devil on a donkey announces that the evil spell put on Dulcineia has come to an end. After being flogged, Sancho is appointed governor of the island. He passes several burlesque judgements, dictates a fanciful letter for his wife and then goes out to have lunch. He is forced to consult a doctor and quarrels with a judge about whether eating is good or not. Touring his island, Sancho wants to stop a serenade, but he flees after a sword fight. The scene ends with a fake attack on his island: Sancho avoids being killed.
The Countess Trifaldi asks Don Quixote to remove her spell. Mounting a horse that came down from the sky, he leaves and starts his quest as a wandering knight again, while Sancho announces that he plans on going back home. Carrasco tries one last time to bring Don Quixote back to reality, fights him in a duel, unhorses him and forces him to go back home. Sancho complains that he has won nothing in this adventure.

Not specified

António José Da Silva (António José da Silva, aka O Judeu)

Portugal

Lisbon

Printed

Madness

Illusion

Knighthood

Deception

Adventure

Trap

Mock-heroic

Fantasy

Comical

Parodistic

Burlesque

António José da Silva, Vida do grande D. Quixote de la Mancha e do gordo Sancho Pança, stage direction by Émilie Valantin, Comédie-Française, 2008.

Portuguese

Sancho Panza

Niece

Nurse

Daughter

Notary

Peasant (female)

Devil

Calliope

Apollo

Muse

Miller

Sailor

Gentleman

Lady

Clerk

Merlin

Violinist

Physician

Surgeon

Innkeeper

Old woman

Horseman

Bearded lady

Chorus

Aside

Aria

Flying machine

Apparition of a god

Disguised character (false identity)

Fight with an animal

Earthquake

Avista

Shipwreck scene

Scene of flagellation

Court scene

Vida do grande D. Quixote de la Mancha e do gordo Sancho Pança

Life of the great Don Quixote of la Mancha and of the fat Sancho Panza

The ghost of Hamlet’s father reveals to him that he was murdered by his own brother, who succeeded him on the throne of Denmark. He asks his son to avenge him. Hamlet feigns madness to pull the wool over his mother’s and uncle’s eyes, as he stages a puppet play that has them believe he knows about their crime. As he argues with his mother, he discovers that they are being spied on by the courtier Oldenholm and he throws him out the window, into the moats of the castle. Oldenholm’s daughter – Ophelia – believes that his father has died and loses her sanity: but Hamlet has secretly saved him from drowning. Ophelia reunites with her father and comes back to her senses. However, the king wants to dispose of his nephew by sending him to war against Napoleon, under Admiral Nelson’s commands. Hamlet finds out about this conspiracy. During the farewell dance organised for him, he has the king drink the poison that was meant for him. He then ascends the throne of Denmark and marries Ophelia. His uncle, who was saved at death’s door, is exiled to Greenland.

String marionette

Glove-puppet

Schink Johann Friedrich

Germany

Ratzeburg

Philosophy

Idealism

Murder

Politics

Court life

Plot

Love

Commedia dell'arte

Shakespeare

Satirical

Illustration on the cover page of the 1800 edition.

German

Momus und sein Guckkasten

Ein Marionettenspiel

Hamlet

Guard

Captain

Queen

Courtier

Ophelia

Ghost

Puppeteer

Pantaloon

Colombine

Pierrot

Prince

Il Dottore (Commedia dell'arte)

Scapin

Polichinelle

Prologue

Address to the public

Sung scenes

Monologue

Metadiscourse on puppet theatre

Comic equivocation

Allegory

Political allegory

Allusion to current literary events

Instrumental tune

Pantomime

Play in verse

Prinz Hamlet von Dännemark

Hamlet Prince of Danemark

Spring is cheering the birds and people up: a child is amazed to see a butterfly take flight, young boys are playing with a kite, and the gravedigger, envious, admires a heron in the sky. His neighbour, a blacksmith, tells him that his wings are ready. He tries in vain to talk him out of his dream of flying. Elsbeth despairs at her husband’s fixation and relates the gravedigger’s dream; the latter is particularly gloomy and worries Elsbeth. Meanwhile, the gardener, who is in love with Elsbeth, easily removes his naïve rival, the poet Blumenstengel (literally, Flower stem) : the latter believes that he has temporarily been transformed into an attractive sunflower. At night, the gravedigger tries over and over to take flight; he invokes the moon and stars before yielding to the devil’s proposal… A few days later, the gardener and the young Elsbeth bill and coo as they praise the flowers of springs; then, devastated, the gravedigger’s wife relates that her husband, who has been missing for some time, appeared to her during the night and ordered her to die after one final and icy kiss. Two graves were dug. At night, the gravedigger calls Death, who takes a long time to come. When the clock strikes midnight, he hurries inside his house with a knife. The following day, it is revealed that he has killed his wife and daughter; he is denounced and sentenced to hang. The gardener mourns Elsbeth and the crowd laments the gravedigger’s madness.

Shadow theatre

Kerner Justinus

Munich

Deal with the Devil

Flying dream

Crime

Spring

Counterfeit Money

Tragic

Lyrical

Fantastic

Photo of Dora Polster's scenery and shadow figures for the scene involving Death and a monk (end of the first act), 1907.

Gravedigger

Wife

Gärtnermädchen und Tochter des Totengräbers

Blacksmith

Gardener

Lover (man)

Poet

Spirit

Sculptor monk

Hunter

King

Young woman

Craftsperson

Death

Skeleton

People

Apparition of the Devil

Song

Hidden character

Love duet

Graveyard scene

Arrest scene

Der Totengräber von Feldberg

The Gravedigger of Feldberg

Rosalinde, dressed as a male student, enters Doctor Faust’s home and gives him a book of magical spells. As a consequence, Faust believes he is making a deal with the devil, but he is in fact the victim of a trick orchestrated by the young woman, who conspired with Faust’s houseboy – Hans Wurst. When Satan comes back at midnight, he tells Faust that he has no intention of keeping his promises, and that the poor man has sold his soul for nothing. And yet, he grants him a final trial, which could save him from Hell: Faust must resist the gorgeous Helen of Troy. But he gives in the moment that she appears to him. Rosalinde then reveals that she was both the devil and the beautiful Helen: it is to her that he has devoted his body and soul. The play ends with two weddings, as Rosalinde’s servant, Lisette, is Hans Wurst’s sweetheart.

Augsburg

Scholar

Sorcery

Humour

Professor

Gluttony

Doctor

Sophism

Joke

Morality

Woman

Seduction

Title page of the play in Johann Scheible's Das Kloster (1847)

Faust

Hanswurst

Domestic servant

Student

Helen of Troy

Disguise

Cross-dressing

Word for another

Pact with the devil

Misunderstanding

Scene of recognition

Final wedding

Final song

Johann Faust oder der gefoppte Doktor

Johann Faust or the duped doctor

A poet comes out of his bath to walk on a bridge and enjoy the sunset. A gardener walks past him and mentions the glorious life he gave up in order to cultivate flowers. A young man relates his day spent hunting alone. Then comes a stranger, and after him a girl who is listening to a traveling singer. Night has now fallen. A group of three people arrives on the bridge: a madman, his servant, and a doctor. The madman is a young nobleman who had a life of abundance before devoting himself to solitude and to roaming. He meditates on the illusion of all things while leaning on the bannister. He tries to throw himself in the water, but his comrades prevent him from doing so.

Hofmann, Edler von Hofmannsthal Hugo Laurenz August

Austria

Bad Fusch

Bath

Evening

Landscape

Flowers

Loneliness

Glory

Misery

Hunting

Dream

River

Childhood

Night

Destiny

Melancholy

Suicide

Oder die Glücklichen

Street singer

Fool

Teichoscopy

Light effects

Off-stage voice

Das kleine Welttheater

The small theatre of the world

The old Ablamore, father of seven daughters, of whom only one, Astolaine, is still alive, wants to make the young Greek slave Alladine his mistress. Alladine and Palomides, Astolaine's fiancé, fall in love with each other. While Astolaine resigns herself to giving Palomides her freedom, Ablamore sinks into jealousy. Alladine and Palomides, shackled and blindfolded, are locked in an underground cave. They manage to free themselves from their bonds and are delighted by the beauty of the cave and an underground lake. Astolaine and the six sisters of Palomides, who have come to rescue them, let in the light of day which reveals the true aspect of the cave. The two lovers become frightened and fall into the lake. After being pulled out of the water, they are placed in two separate chambers and, while talking without seeing each other, they both die.

Vida do grande D. Quixote de la Mancha e do gordo Sancho Pança

Prinz Hamlet von Dännemark

Ein Marionettenspiel

Der Totengräber von Feldberg

Johann Faust oder der gefoppte Doktor

Das kleine Welttheater

Oder die Glücklichen

Alladine et Palomides

Arlecchino cavaliere errante e Facanapa suo scudiere

Suicidi e omicidi acrobatici

The Three Men of Gotham

A Blithering Interlude for Burattini

Oratorio pour une vie