The Blue Bird (play)

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The Blue Bird
Coonen Chalutina Blue Bird Maeterlinck 2.jpg
Mytyl (Alisa Koonen) and Tyltyl (Sofya Khalyutina) in the Moscow Art Theatre production (1908)
Written by Maurice Maeterlinck
Date premiered30 September 1908 (1908-09-30)

The Blue Bird (French : L'Oiseau bleu) is a 1908 play by Belgian playwright and poet Maurice Maeterlinck. It premiered on 30 September 1908 at Konstantin Stanislavski's Moscow Art Theatre, and was presented on Broadway in 1910. The play has been adapted for several films and a TV series. The French composer Albert Wolff wrote an opera (first performed at the New York Metropolitan Opera in 1919) based on Maeterlinck's original play, and Maeterlinck's inamorata Georgette Leblanc produced a novelization.

Contents

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 titled The Betrothal; or, The Blue Bird Chooses.

Story

Tyltyl (Gladys Hulette) and Mytyl (Irene Brown) watch the Christmas party across the street in the Broadway production of The Blue Bird (1910) Review of reviews and world's work (1890) (14596199657).jpg
Tyltyl (Gladys Hulette) and Mytyl (Irene Brown) watch the Christmas party across the street in the Broadway production of The Blue Bird (1910)

In the opening scene, the two children gleefully describe the beautiful decorations and rich desserts that they see in the house of a wealthy family nearby. When Bérylune says that it is wrong for the rich not to share their cakes with Tyltyl and Mytyl, the boy corrects her. It is enough that he gets to watch others’ happiness; their joy does not create envy in him. The theme is emphasized again when the children meet the Luxuries, particularly the biggest one of all, the Luxury of Being Rich. When Tyltyl turns the diamond, the hall is bathed with a dazzling brightness, and the Luxuries run wildly in search of a dark corner where they may hide their ugliness from the ethereal light.

At the end of the play, Tyltyl shows what he has learned about happiness. He looks out the window at the forest and remarks how beautiful it is. The inside of the house looks much lovelier to him than it did before. Also, he creates great happiness for another by giving his pet bird, which seems much bluer than before, to the sick child. [1]

Adaptations

Novelization

The Blue Bird for Children by Georgette Leblanc and Maurice Maeterlinck [2]

Film

Fine art

The Mysterious Garden, 1911, by Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh The Mysterious Garden (1911) by Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh.jpg
The Mysterious Garden, 1911, by Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh

Television

Radio

Opera

Notable cultural references

Maurice Maeterlinck commemorative coin 2008 Belgium 50 Euro Maurice Maeterlinck front.JPG
Maurice Maeterlinck commemorative coin

The Dutch school types Mytyl schools and Tyltyl schools are named after Mytyl and Tyltyl: they are for children with a physical disability and for children with both a physical and mental disability, respectively. The Scouting Nederland section for children with special needs (Extension Scouting) is named: "Blauwe Vogels" (Blue Birds).

Celebrating the 100th anniversary of "Maurice Maeterlinck's greatest contemporary success The Blue Bird", as it was termed, his play was selected as the main motif of a high-value collectors' coin: the Belgian 50 euro Maurice Maeterlinck commemorative coin, minted in 2008.

See also

Related Research Articles

The Blue Bird may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maurice Maeterlinck</span> Belgian playwright and essayist (1862–1949)

Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck, also known as CountMaeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who was Flemish but wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911 "in appreciation of his many-sided literary activities, and especially of his dramatic works, which are distinguished by a wealth of imagination and by a poetic fancy, which reveals, sometimes in the guise of a fairy tale, a deep inspiration, while in a mysterious way they appeal to the readers' own feelings and stimulate their imaginations". The main themes in his work are death and the meaning of life. He was a leading member of La Jeune Belgique group and his plays form an important part of the Symbolist movement. In later life, Maeterlinck faced credible accusations of plagiarism.

A bluebird is one of several species in the songbird genus Sialia.

The Blue Bird is a 1910 silent film, based on the 1908 play by Maurice Maeterlinck and starring Pauline Gilmer as Mytyl and Olive Walter as Tytyl. It was filmed in England.

<i>The Blue Bird</i> (1918 film) 1918 film by Maurice Tourneur

The Blue Bird is a 1918 American silent fantasy film based upon the 1908 play by Maurice Maeterlinck and directed by Maurice Tourneur in the United States, under the auspices of producer Adolph Zukor. In 2004, this film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in its National Film Registry.

<i>The Blue Bird</i> (1940 film) 1940 film by Walter Lang

The Blue Bird is a 1940 American fantasy film directed by Walter Lang. The screenplay by Walter Bullock was adapted from the 1908 play of the same name by Maurice Maeterlinck. Intended as 20th Century Fox's answer to MGM's The Wizard of Oz, which had been released the previous year, it was filmed in Technicolor and tells the story of a disagreeable young girl and her search for happiness.

<i>The Blue Bird</i> (1976 film) 1976 film by George Cukor

The Blue Bird is a 1976 American-Soviet children's fantasy film directed by George Cukor. The screenplay by Hugh Whitemore, Alfred Hayes, and Aleksei Kapler is based on the 1908 play L'Oiseau bleu by Maurice Maeterlinck. It was the fifth screen adaptation of the play, following two silent films, the studio's 1940 version starring Shirley Temple, and a 1970 animated feature. It was famous as one of the few cinematic co-productions between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. However unlike prior adaptations the film received little-to-no critical praise and was a flop at the box office.

The Blue Bird is a 1970 Soviet animated feature film based upon the 1908 play by Maurice Maeterlinck. It was directed by Vasily Livanov and made at the Soyuzmultfilm studio.

<i>Maeterlincks Blue Bird: Tyltyl and Mytyls Adventurous Journey</i> Japanese anime television series

Maeterlinck's Blue Bird: Tyltyl and Mytyl's Adventurous Journey is a 1980 Japanese animated television series directed by Hiroshi Sasagawa, with character designs from Leiji Matsumoto. It is based on the 1908 play by Maurice Maeterlinck. The series was 26-episodes long when aired on Japanese television. The series was made in Japan between 1978 and 1979.

<i>The Death of Tintagiles</i>

The Death of Tintagiles is an 1894 play by Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck. It was Maeterlinck's last play for marionettes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Albert Wolff (conductor)</span> French conductor and composer (1884–1970)

Albert Louis Wolff was a French conductor and composer of Dutch descent. Most of his career was spent in European venues, with the exception of two years that he spent as a conductor at the Metropolitan Opera and a few years in Buenos Aires during the Second World War. He is most known for holding the position of principal conductor with the Opéra-Comique in Paris for several years. He was married to the French mezzo-soprano Simone Ballard.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bluebird of happiness</span> Bird as harbinger or symbol

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Georgette Leblanc</span> French opera singer

Georgette Leblanc was a French operatic soprano, actress, author, and the sister of novelist Maurice Leblanc. She became particularly associated with the works of Jules Massenet and was an admired interpreter of the title role in Bizet's Carmen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raymonde Delaunois</span>

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L'oiseau bleu is an opera in four acts by the French composer and conductor Albert Wolff. The libretto by Maurice Maeterlinck is based on his 1908 play of the same name. Boris Anisfeld designed the sets.

<i>LOiseau bleu</i> (Metzinger) Painting by Jean Metzinger

L'Oiseau bleu is a large oil painting created in 1912–1913 by the French artist and theorist Jean Metzinger (1883–1956); considered by Guillaume Apollinaire and André Salmon as a founder of Cubism, along with Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso. L'Oiseau bleu, one of Metzinger's most recognizable and frequently referenced works, was first exhibited in Paris at the Salon des Indépendants in the spring of 1913, several months after the publication of the first Cubist manifesto, Du "Cubisme", written by Jean Metzinger and Albert Gleizes (1912). It was subsequently exhibited at the 1913 Erster Deutscher Herbstsalon in Berlin.

<i>LOiseau Bleu</i> (train)

L'Oiseau Bleu was an international express train linking Antwerp with Paris. The train was named after the play L'Oiseau Bleu as a tribute to its author, the Belgian Nobel prize laureate Maurice Maeterlinck.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Renée Dahon</span>

Renée Dahon (1893–1969) was a French actress.

References

  1. The Blue Bird Themes, Maurice Maeterlinck, enotes.com
  2. Maeterlinck, Maurice; Leblanc, Georgette (1914). Frederick Orville Perkins (ed.). The Blue Bird for Children. Teixeira de Mattos, translator. Silver, Burdette and Company. Retrieved July 14, 2012.
  3. David Rooney, Blue Bird: Cannes 2011 Review, 18 May 2011
  4. "Online collections | City of Paris Museum of Modern Art". www.mam.paris.fr. Retrieved Jul 28, 2022.
  5. Laura Kathleen Valeri, Rediscovering Maurice Maeterlinck and His Significance for Modern Art, Supervisor: Linda D. Henderson, The University of Texas at Austin, 2011