About the work
Der tapfere Cassian ("Gallant Cassian") is a one-act puppet play Arthur Schnitzler wrote in 1904; it premiered on 22 November 1904 together with the one-act Der grüne Kakadu at the Kleines Theater in der Praterstraße in Vienna. In 1906 it appeared from S. Fischer as part of the one-act cycle Marionetten.
Plot
The student Martin abandons his sweetheart Sophie for a travelling dancer; his cousin, the soldier Cassian, then wins Sophie for himself and kills Martin in a duel over her – only to fall for the same dancer himself in the end, leaving Sophie behind just as carelessly. The puppet stage turns the fickleness of desire into a comic principle.
Cultural significance
In 1909 the material was reworked into a musical Singspiel with music by Oscar Straus, premiered in Leipzig on 30 October 1909 – one of the earliest transformations of a Schnitzler one-act into musical theatre.