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”).

Not specified

Ferrajolo Pasquale

Italy

Naples

Printed

Night

Treason

Friendship

Inheritance

Love

Comical

Italian

ovvero Temporale a Mezzanotte

Pulcinella

The Interpreter

Fiancé

Felice Sciosciammocca

Fiancée

Thunderbolt

Sound of rain

Misunderstanding

Sleeping character

Song

Word for another

Word warping

Address to the public

Throwing objects

'Na nuttata 'e guai

A night of troubles or Storm at midnight