The Blue Bird (French: L'Oiseau bleu) is a 1908 play by Maurice Maeterlinck. It premiered on 30 September 1908 at Constantin Stanislavski's Moscow Art Theatre and has been turned into several films and a TV series. The French composer Albert Wolff wrote an opera (first performed at the N.Y. Metropolitan in 1919) based on Maeterlinck's original play.
The story is about a girl called Mytyl and her brother Tyltyl seeking happiness, represented by The Blue Bird of Happiness, aided by the good fairy Bérylune.
Maeterlinck also wrote a relatively little known sequel to The Blue Bird, entitled The Blue Bird and the Betrothal.
Now, obviously I read (and re-read a hundred times) this book in Russian. I was about 8 when I first got it, and I've always considered it one of the best children's books ever written (I also loved the illustrations), if somewhat darker and deeper than your standard children's fiction.
As it turns out, Maeterlinck was no mere children's author. His plays (including L'Oiseau Bleu) form an important part of the Symbolist movement. The main themes in his work are death and the meaning of life. And he received Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911.
Well there you go. I only just found out. Boy, is my face red.
Original source of the images.
No comments:
Post a Comment