While the audience waited for the opera to begin, they used the stage as a playground.

The King's herald told them to return to their seats.

The King's son was always ill.

There was nothing really wrong with him. He just imagined it.

Pantaloon advised the King to summon Truffaldino, the jester.

The King's magician, Tchelio, had a deadly enemy. She was Fata Morgana who supported the evil prime minister, Leandro.

He intended to marry the King's niece, Clarissa. She would inherit the throne if the Prince did not recover.

Leandro and Clarissa plotted while Truffaldino arranged an entertainment to amuse the sick Prince.

They saw Smeraldina spying on them.

Before they could shoot her, she explained that she had been sent by Fata Morgana.

Truffaldino was unable to persuade the Prince to move from his bed. So the jester threw all his medicines out of the window.

Reluctantly the Prince got up to watch the entertainment Truffaldino had arranged.

The Prince refused to laugh at anything.

Then Fata Morgana arrived.

The Prince found her disguise so funny he could not stop laughing at the witch.

Fata Morgana put a curse on him.

The curse made the Prince fall in love with three oranges. Despite the King's fury, his son prepared to set out on a quest to find the fruit.

Tchelio summoned the devil Farfarello.

He blew the Prince and Truffaldino on their way with his giant bellows.

The Prince discovered the three oranges in the kitchen of a giant cook.

While he ran off with the fruit, the cook caught Truffaldino.

Before she could put him in the cooking pot, the jester waved some magic ribbons Tchelio had given him.

The cook was entranced and let him go.

By the time they had reached a scorching desert the oranges had grown much larger.

Truffaldino cut two of the oranges open. Instead of juice, inside were two Princesses dying of thirst.

Inside the last orange was Princess Ninetta.

The audience lowered a bucket of water to make sure she did not die of thirst as well.

So he could get married to Ninetta, the Prince left to bring back the King.

While the Princess waited, Fata Morgana pricked her with a giant pin and turned her into a rat.

When the Prince returned, Smeraldina had taken her place.

The King insisted that his son keep his word and marry her.

Fata Morgana told Tchelio that she intended to turn the Prince into a frog. That way, she could be sure that Clarissa would inherit the throne.

The audience was so angry they pulled Fata Morgana from the stage.

Before the Prince was compelled to marry Smeraldina, Tchelio turned the rat back into Princess Ninetta.

The King then realised that Leandro and Clarissa had been plotting to seize the throne.

Before they could be caught, Fata Morgana, Leandro, Clarissa and Smeraldina disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

The Prince and Princess were happily married.