Il Leandro is the first drama in music performed with puppets in Venice: it comes to life in 1679, with a libretto by Count Camillo Badovero and music by Francesco Antonio Mamiliano Pistocchi, known as Pistocchino (whose score has been lost).

The story of Hero and Leander was already told by Ben Jonson in 1614 in a moment of theatre within the theatre—during a puppet show within the play Bartholomew Fair. The story became a very popular theme in musical and artistic productions of the beginning of the 17th century. Dedicated to Gasparo Altieri, Pope Clement X’s nephew, Badovero’s play is performed at the Teatro alle Zattere, a temporary venue set up in a private home in the Dorsoduro neighbourhood, on the bank of the Giudecca canal. The play is performed again in 1682 at the Teatro San Moisè, under the title Gli amori fatali. The libretto from 1679 does not mention puppets. However, the publisher’s preface in the 1682 libretto speaks of the author’s “bizzarria”—a reference to the omnipresence of the marvellous that allows the audience to see on stage what does not exist in the natural world.

The opera brings together noble characters from Ovid’s Heroides and comic characters who mirror their masters’ couples on a farcical mode – the valet Millo is thus described as a “mischievous servant”. The entire drama, written in verse, requires several spectacular techniques that meet the Venetian nobility’s enthusiasm for automated figures and other machines. Venere (Venus) on a cloud, the choir of Nereids coming out of the water in a conch shell, the Amorini taking Leandro up into the sky, Hero transforming into an oleander, Venere on her chariot escorted by a procession of Amorini, Hero and Leandro carried on clouds to Elysium, two Amorini holding the curtain: the list of scenes using machines is typical of baroque Venetian opera and the many special effects, such as tobacco smoke accompanying the dance of drunk seamen, are signs of refined technical mastery.

The play uses puppets sculpted from wood, most likely manipulated from below the scene by one or two puppeteers, while the musicians and singers performed behind the stage. The structure of the play perfectly mimics dramma per musica performances as they were played since the end of the Renaissance – punctuated by choreographed entrances, with marvellous scenic techniques and numerous changes of scenery: the audience is taken from the city’s street to the beach, from night scenes at Court to the sea of Elysium, following the adventure of Hero dressed as a gypsy. The middle of the first act is signalled with a dance, like the end of the first and the second acts: these dances in “cortegi” show groups of silent costumed figures. The third act ends when Venus’ machine appears on a starry chariot to take the lovers to Elysium. Pistocchi probably wrote the music with the puppets’ mechanisms in mind: the fast succession of entrances and exits of the characters, as well as the contrasting tones between the scenes are well suited to the sudden tempo changes emblematic of baroque opera. Many passages repeat the first section of the stanzas and are perfect for sung improvisations (and so for improvised puppet choreographies). Thus, Il Leandro is very similar to forms of entertainment already shown at court. It is the first but also the last performance of an opera for puppets put on at Venice in a public theatre, since it concludes the show given in San Moisè between 1680 and 1682, with Damira placata and L’Ulisse in Feaccia; the print of the libretto for the audience is extremely detailed on this occasion.

Leandro (Leander) meets Hero while she is working in Venere’s (Venus’s) temple: it is love at first glance for the two of them, and their love story develops according to chivalric standards. The romantic dialogue finds an echo in the more prosaic duo between Lesbia and Millo, the two servants. When Hero, faithfully devoted to the goddess, refuses herself to Leandro, he grabs her coat and rips it. She begs him to spare her honour and declares her love before she decides, driven by passion, to die in the breast of her new divinity. Arbace and his suite of singing hunters cross the stage. Lucilla, the fickle lover of Tigrane, placed by the latter in the care of Leandro, tries to seduce Leandro and fails. The first act ends on a burlesque note, with Millo followed by a choir of seamen singing and smoking.

Arbace, who fell in love with Lucilla, is helped by Giocasta (Jocasta): she organises a (rigged) love game, for Tigrane and his lover. The game consists in proving one’s faithfulness by blindly finding a sign of love. While her lover is blindfolded, Lucilla can enjoy Arbace’s kisses. Then she pretends to have won the game and dismisses her lover; Giocasta is amused by women’s cunning. In the meantime, Hero, dressed as a gypsy, puts Leandro’s faithfulness to the test. Seeing Millo, she predicts that he will have a blissful future if he presents her at Court: introduced as a great magician to Lucilla, she is entrusted with the writing of a lover letter intended for Leandro. Arbace understands that his new lover has betrayed him, and Tigrane is sorrowful. Lucilla dances with her suite at the very end of the act.

While Leandro is desperately looking for Hero, the latter, disguised as a gypsy, gives him Lucilla’s letter. She is convinced of his good faith because he rips the letter before even reading it. Leandro decides to join his beloved at night by crossing the water; Hero plans on waiting for him on the neighbouring beach. Unfortunately, Lucilla overhears the conversation between the lovers and asks Arbace to avenge her and to kill Hero. At night, Leandro is about to drown. On her cloud, Venere summons the choir of Nereidi (Nereids) and asks them to save him and take him up in the sky. Arbace wants to hit Hero, who is anxiously waiting for her lover; he kills Lucilla while Hero transforms into Leandro’s plant (oleander). While Lucilla is dying, paying the price of her wrongdoing, the lovers reunite in Elysium, by Venere’s side.