The Little Prince

The Little Prince

by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The Little Prince (the original title of the opera, in French, is "Le Petit Prince") is one of the most famous operas of the 20th century and one of the best-selling in history. It tells the story of a meeting between an aviator, forced by a crash landing in the desert, and a rather strange little boy, who asks him to draw a sheep.

The child came from space and abandoned his small planet, following a migration of wild birds and swooped down to earth in the Sahara desert because he felt too lonely up there: his only companion was a rose. The little prince, who reigns over an asteroid the size of a marble, sweeping extinct volcanoes, caring for his tender and conceited rose, when he arrives on earth will tell the pilot Exupéry about the planets he has visited and its inhabitants: a king, a vain, a drunkard, a businessman, a lamplighter, a geographer, and other bizarre beings. But the being who will strike him the most, who makes him understand the world and human nature the most, will be a fox who will say to him: "The essential is invisible to the eyes".

What are the reasons for such constant success? Why has the fairy tale of Exupéry become a classic, like Alice in Wonderland or Pinocchio? The Little Prince is a very poetic tale which, in the form of a literary work for children, actually deals with complex and profound themes, such as the meaning of life, love and friendship. The author is Saint-Exupéry, born in Lyon in 1900, was a pioneer in the history of aviation. He became a pilot in 1926 and flew in the skies of the Sahara, Patagonia and half the world. Behind him, he had flight records, dangerous military missions and numerous flight accidents. On 31st July 1944, he left Corsica for a war reconnaissance on Grenoble and Annecy and disappeared. Shot down by a German Focke-Wulf, betrayed by a mechanical failure or voluntarily sunk? We don't know.[Immagine CC0 creative commons]

Alongside his deep passion for flying, Saint-Exupéry has always cultivated the other, for writing, and his name remains linked to that little book, to that enchanted fairy tale that has now spanned three generations: The little prince. In 1943 the English translation was published in New York and, a few days later, the original language version. In 2017 The Little Prince became the most translated book in the world among non-religious texts. A book that is not only addressed to children but "to all grown-ups who were children but no longer remember it", as the author himself says in the dedication of his book. It is one of the most quoted books ever. Everywhere we have read sentences and quotations from its pages: on school diaries, postcards, pendants and t-shirts and even on some walls. The illustrations by Saint-Exupéry himself may confuse ideas about the destination of the reading age: essential images closely linked to the text that lead to the fairy-tale element, in which the theme of loneliness prevails, which unites children and adults in this world that today leaves no hope. The Little Prince helps us, with his allegory and without any moralism (as in fairy tales of oral tradition) not to feel lonely.

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By Kork75!