Witches and spirits dance around the walnut tree. Canidio the evil spirit provokes a hurricane in order to gain control of the beautiful Dorilla, Roberto’s wife, who gets lost in the woods and falls asleep. Canidio transfers her spirit into the body of a deer. Martinazzo, the good spirit, challenges Canidio. The servant of Dorilla and Roberto, Arlequin, meets with his master: they see a dreadful deer and want to kill it but Martinazzo warns them that Dorilla is inside. He gives them the opportunity to join her. Arlequin and Roberto discover Dorilla resisting to Canidio’s flirting. Roberto wants to save his wife but he is bewitched just like Arlequin and they both end up paralyzed and mute under the walnut tree. Martinazzo frees them and explains how to kill the deer with a magic arrow. Roberto and Martinazzo free Dorilla, while Arlequin talks to an ugly old lady who promises him that he will be rich if he marries her. He gives in to greed and accepts, but the old lady is actually a demon. Roberto and Martinazzo defeat Canidio but Arlequin is locked in a cage with him. Dorilla reunites with her husband. Martinazzo frees Arlequin and sentences Canidio to live in a dark cave.

String marionette

All audiences

Italy

Manuscript

Jealousy

Spell

Magic

Virtues

Love

Initiation tests

Fantasy

Fantastic

Comical

Italian

Apparition of a genie

Stormy scene

Incantation

Spying scene

Confinement

Fight with an animal

Metamorphosis

Versified passages

Dance

Il Noce di Benevento

The Walnut Tree of Benevento

The story takes place in Grenada at the beginning of the 16th century. Juan Ramero, a former soldier in the army of Isabella the Catholic, is now a bellringer in a church in town. On the twentieth anniversary of the Reconquista, the inhabitants of Grenada gift a bell made with gold and silver to the old mosque, which was turned into a Catholic church, so that Juan Ramero can ring it to celebrate this anniversary. But Saïd le Maure (the Moor Saïd), who fought Juan Ramero, comes back to avenge himself. He accuses him of having stripped him of his house and of having killed his son. Since then, he became a magician by making a deal with the devil Satanas, and he took advantage of the gullibility of Lola, the servant, to get into the house. In fact, Saïd’s son is not dead – on the day of the last battle between Christians and Muslims, Juan Ramero came across three men fighting over the baby’s crib. Juan Ramero saved him, baptised him under the name Andrès and raised him as his son. However, Saïd knows nothing about this and wants to kill Juan Ramero, his daughter Carmen and Andrès, whom he believes to be Ramero’s son. He makes a deal with Satanas, who grants him the power to transform humans. Saïd chases Juan Ramero and his children in the desert, where he turns Carmen into a myrtle and Andrès into a roebuck. Juan Ramero reveals the whole truth to Saïd. To redeem himself, the latter calls upon Azaël -Satanas’ enemy – who gives the children their original form back. They all make peace and go back to Grenada to start a new life.