Don Juan is set free from hell on the condition that he leads one thousand and three women to ruin. When he comes back on earth, the seducer appoints Kasperle as his servant, under the name Casparello. The fairy Innocentia goes after them to protect the innocence of young women. The task will prove difficult. Don Juan arrives near Barcelona, where he chances on one of his old victims, Zerline, who is now old and desperately looking for a man. Don Juan and Kasperle flee as quickly as possible when they see her. Innocentia chases them relentlessly and locks Kasperle up in a cage as he sleeps, but she falls in love with him then. Don Juan comes on and frees the prisoner. In Turkey, Don Juan seduces Fatime, a slave to the cadi Mustapha. Both the master and the servant are arrested and sentenced to death. But Lucifer appears and takes Don Juan with him in hell, for having failed to seduce one hundred and three women. Innocentia also appears and takes Kasperle with her in her palace in the clouds.

String marionette

All audiences

Koch Ludwig

Germany

Munich

Printed

Manuscript

Music

Opera

Storm

Hell

Eternal punishment

Seduction

Turkey

Spain

Silliness

Old age

Despotism

Escape

Cage

Bird

Love

Innocence

Fantasy

Parodistic

German

Kasperles Gefahren

Don Juan

Kasperl

Fairy

Clerk

Zerlina

Slave

Servant

Devil

Apparition

Final intervention of the devil

Inn scene

Allegory

Magic act

Bawdy equivocation

Comic equivocation

Glory

Love story

Macaronism

Aria

Ghost

Dialect as a social marker

Versified passages

Deus ex machina

Confinement

Parody of formal language

Pact with the devil

Don Juan's zweites Leben

The Second Life of Don Juan

Clara, a young teenage girl, has killed herself. The day after, the Arpenteur (surveyor) questions several of her relatives to try and understand the circumstances of her death. Whilst he looks for the reasons that led to this act, he also tries to grasp the reasons that motivate him to live. Each of Clara’s relatives describe memories of her and provide contradictory stories of her last moments. Dylan, her boyfriend, admits he felt that she had no desire to live. From the hereafter, Clara observes the same feeling in others. She hears the song that Dylan hums for her and tries to call for him, but to he can’t see her. Adrien, Pierre, and Sylvain, whose job is to start fires, say that they saw Clara with the Passeur (the ferryman). In a flashback, we can see Clara asking the Passeur to choose how she is going to die. A chorus of naiads then describes how she drowned in the river. The Arpenteur asks the Passeur to bring Clara back from the dead. The Arpenteur solves a riddle, and the Passeur allows Clara’s relatives to see her one last time. Clara appears and sees how they all suffer, but she assures them that she is happier dead than alive.

Not specified

France

Paris

Suicide

Mysterious death

Remembrance

Grief

Quest

Afterlife

Lust

fleuve

Tragic

Philosophical tale

Fantastic

Éloi Recoing, Un instant suicidaire, Théâtre aux Mains Nues, 2008