Il piccolo principe

Libretto by Paolo Madron after the book by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry; German version by Hanna Francesconi (I,G)

2S,M,T,Bar,B, child soloists; children's chorus;
1.1.1.1-2.1.0.0-timp.perc(1)-harp-strings(min.3.3.2.1.1, or 1.1.1.1.1)

A little boy dreams of becoming a pilot. And shows himself to be an imaginative illustrator: a boa that has swallowed an elephant is however not recognized as such by the adults, but rather thought to be a hat, which makes the boy doubt the adults’ power of imagination. Many years later, he makes an emergency landing in the desert with his one-man postal airplane, and there he entirely unexpectedly meets the Little Prince, who, coming from his Asteroid B-612, found his way to earth. The two understand each other right away, and the Little Prince immediately recognizes in the pilot’s unsuccessful drawings, which he is supposed to draw for him, as the sheep it is supposed to depict.

The Little Prince tells the pilot, who attempts to repair his airplane, about his experiences on other inhabited planets and asteroids in space and on the earth: about his encounters with a ruler who is enamored in ruling; about a female singer who is in love with herself; about a man who is in love with possessing; and about a fox who explained to him the essence of friendship. The Little Prince is homesick for his asteroid, and for the rose that waits for him there. Yet, once on the large earth, it is not so easy to get back to the small realm of childhood. A snake, who encounters the Little Prince in the desert, will assist him in returning home.

Poetic