These are adult thoughts said in a childlike way… The Little Prince’s death is a suicide of an adult who has seen the darkness to its depth”.
— Michel Autrand
As we created a musical theater play on the basis of one of the most widely read works alongside the Bible and Karl Marx’s Capital, we made no attempt to turn the familiar story of a golden-haired boy into a “screen version” or “a translation into the language of the scene”.
First of all, we created a FANTASY about the Little Prince.
This FANTASY is largely visual and musical.
It is this dominating musical component of our project that made our FANTASY quite liberal.
The pilot’s impending death in the desert is no make believe; it is drawing near for real, as he tries to fix his plane. But the thirst, the sand, and the heat do their part: unaware of their work, he begins to daydream. The spectator and the protagonist should till the very end remain unsure whether the boy from Asteroid B-612 who urges the pilot to think back on the value of childhood is real or imaginary.
Only one thing is clear: while the pilot struggles to save his life and his body, the prince urges him to save his soul, as he naively searches for answers for his grown-up questions.
And the star traveler will leave only once it becomes clear to him that he has saved the pilot and brought him back to himself, when he has given him “water for the heart” and has made sure his friend understands that “what is most important is invisible.”
A play based on Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Translated from French by Nora Gal
Konstantin Khabensky
Yuri Bashmet
Moscow Soloists Chamber Orchestra
Director – Victor KRAMER
Staged by Victor KRAMER
Set and costume design by Victor KRAMER
Composer – Kuzma BODROV
Lighting designer – Igor FOMIN
Video designers – Kirill MALOVICHKO, Oleg MIKHAILOV, Vadim DULENKO, Polina SYROVYATKINA
Staged in concert with the Sovremennik Theater
The performance premiered at the Winter International Arts Festival in Sochi 2016.