About the work
Fantastical burlesque operetta in four acts by Franz von Suppé to a libretto by Karl Juin and Julius Hopp, first performed on 5 January 1878 at the Carltheater in Vienna.
Plot
The devil Satanas and his steward Mephistopheles must travel to earth because three of their ministers have taken leave from hell and failed to return. They track down the runaways in human disguise – among them as the head of a ladies' seminary and as a cadet captain – and send them back to hell, while the human couples the devils encounter along the way find each other.
Cultural significance
Despite a successful premiere, the operetta never held its place in the repertoire; biographer Hans-Dieter Roser suggests its plea for greater liberality was unwelcome in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was not rediscovered on German-speaking stages until a 2016 production in Munich, followed by further reworkings in 2018 and 2019.