This list of The Little Prince adaptations is based on the novella of the same name (original title: Le Petit Prince) by the French writer, poet and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
The illustrated book was first published in 1943. The novella is both the most read and most translated book in the French language, and was voted the best book of the 20th century in France. Translated into more than 250 languages and dialects (including braille), selling close to two million copies per year with sales totalling more than 140 million copies worldwide, it has become one of the best-selling books ever published.
Due to the story's wide appeal, the novella has been adapted into various media over the decades, including audio recordings, graphic novel, movie musicals, movie screen, animated series, live stage theatre, ballet and opera.
Audio adaptations
Vinyl record
1954: An audio adaptation, as a vinyl record, was made with the French actor Gérard Philipe in the role of The Narrator, Georges Poujouly as The Prince, Pierre Larquey in the role of The Lamplighter, Michel Roux in the role of The Serpent, Jacques Grello in the role of The Fox, and Sylvie Pelayo in the role of The Rose. 1956: A German adaptation on a Philips label double LP record album, narrated by Hardy Krüger 1972: An adaptation with Jean-Louis Trintignant in the role of narrator and Eric Damain in the role of The Prince 1972: An adaptation with Peter Ustinov reading all roles. (Argo ZSW 520-1) 1973: An adaptation with Marcel Mouloudji in the role of narrator and Eric Rémy in the role of The Prince. 1975: Actor Richard Burton won the Grammy Award for Best Album for Children for his narration of The Little Prince, featuring Jonathan Winters, Claudine Longet, and Billy Simpson. It was produced by Buddy Kaye with music by Mort Garson. 1978: A phono adaptation with Jean-Claude Pascal in the role of narrator was released. 1983: songs from the German version, Der kleine Prinz, by Kurt Demmler, and later produced in 1985 as a double LP on the Amiga label 1990: A phono adaptation with Pierre Arditi in the role of narrator and Benjamin Pascal in the role of The Prince was released. 1996: A Digital Quebec production with a musical score by Robert Normandeau was released. Actor Michel Dumont (as the Narrator–Aviator) is surrounded by an array of characters, including a young Martin Pensa who embodies the title role.
Radio broadcasts
1953: An adaptation by Jon Farrell, with incidental music composed by James Bernard, was broadcast on the BBC Light Programme on 20 December 1953."Radio Theatre presents ' THE LITTLE PRINCE'" (Light Programme, 20 December 1953 | 17.00), Radio Times, Issue 1571, 18 December 1953, p. 15. 1956: Raymond Burr starred in a radio adaptation of The Little Prince on The CBS Radio Workshop."The Little Prince" - 1956 CBS Radio Workshop Audio Drama, YouTube.com. 1974: Jon Farrell's adaptation, with Nigel Stock as Narrator and Gwyn Guthrie as The Little Prince, was broadcast on 13 April 1974 on BBC Radio 4 with incidental music by Wilma Paterson."Afternoon Theatre" (BBC Radio 4 FM, 13 April 1974 | 15.05), Radio Times, Issue 2631, 11 April 1974, p. 21. 1999: BBC Radio 4 broadcast, on Christmas Day 1999 (and subsequently repeated), a dramatization by Bonnie Greer of a new translation into English of The Little Prince."The Saturday Play: The Little Prince" (BBC Radio 4 FM, 25 December 1999 | 14.00), Radio Times, Issue 3957, 16 December 1999, p. 189."Bonnie Greer", BBC News, 2 May 2002. Produced by Pam Fraser Solomon, and with music composed by Keith Waithe,"Classic Serial: The Little Prince" (BBC Radio 4 FM, 26 May 2002), Radio Times, Issue 4081, 23 May 2002, p. 125. the dramatization starred Robert Powell as the aviator and narrator, Garrett Moore as The Little Prince, and Bernard Cribbins as The King, The Drunkard, and The Lamplighter. It was repeated in May 2002."Antoine Saint-Exupery: Radio Drama", Diversity Website. An audio cassette recording is available in the BBC Radio Collection series."The Little Prince: A BBC Radio 4 Full-cast Dramatisation (BBC Radio Collection)", BBC Audiobooks Ltd (1 November 1999), .
Cassette tape and CD
1959: An audio cassette adaptation in German, with Will Quadflieg in the role of narrator. 1994: Adapted to a CD, by Matthew Mancini and others, with music by Fabio Concato, directed by Marco Carniti, on the EMI label from Milan, Italy in 1994 1996: Marc André Coallier narrated Le Petit Prince, supported by Marc-André Grondin, Sophie Stanké, Paul Buissoneau, Ghislain Tremblay, Gaston Lepage, Jean-Pierre Gonthier and Gilbert Lachance. The accompanying music was performed by Alexandre Stanké. 1998: A CD adaptation is directed by Romain Victo-Pujebet, with rumors of Philippe Leroy, Lella Costa with original music by Olivier Priszlak, released in Paris by Gallimard and in Milan by Pontaccio. 1999: An audiobook adaptation on the Patmos label, read by Ulrich Mühe, wins a Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik award in 2000 (). 2009: Hörbuch von Rausch (Ecstasy Audiobook) adaptation of Der kleine Prinz, with a new translation narrated by Jan Josef Liefers
Film and television
1966: A Soviet–Lithuanian film adaptation Mažasis princas (), was made by Arūnas Žebriūnas. 1966: The German DDR network broadcasts a TV movie of Der Kleine Prinz by Konrad Wolf 1974: The first English film musical adaptation, titled The Little Prince, directed by Stanley Donen for Paramount Pictures, debuted to mixed reviews The film is notable chiefly in that it marked the third last "Lerner and Loewe" collaboration (referring to lyricist and librettist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe), which was also their final musical. The authors were dissatisfied with the film's Hollywood treatment, with Loewe subsequently refusing to visit London to supervise the arrangement and recording of its musical score. The film was unsuccessful at the box office, but has become somewhat of a cult classic, featuring Bob Fosse, who choreographed his own dance sequences as The Snake, and Gene Wilder who played The Fox. 1978: The Adventures of the Little Prince, a Japanese animated series based on the book, aired in Europe and North America in the 1970s and 1980s. The show was made by the Knack animation studio and first aired in Japan in 1978 under the title . In it, the little prince often traveled to Earth to help people. During the 1980s, the English-language version was aired in the United States on ABC and then Nickelodeon, as internationally produced animation often was. The English version featured Julie Dees (later voiced by veteran voice actress Katie Leigh) in the role of the Little Prince and is available on DVD from Koch Vision. 1978: A Russian animated series Приключения Маленького принца (The Adventures of the Little Prince) is produced by Franklin Kofod. 1979: A Claymation short film adaptation titled The Little Prince was created by Will Vinton written by Susan Shadburne, featuring Cliff Robertson as the narrator-pilot. 1990: A 60-minute German ZDF animated film, Der Kleine Prinz, is produced by Theo Kerp, featuring the voices of Sabine Bohlmann, Joachim Hoeppner, and Cornelia Froboess."Der Kleine Prinz", KJK-Muenchen.de website.Der Kleine Prinz , AlphaFilms.de website. 1990: A French film adaptation is released as Le Petit Prince by Jean-Louis Guillermou, with Guy Gravis, Daniel Royan and Alexandre Warner. 2004: An operatic adaptation based on the music of Rachel Portman (featuring Willard White and Lesley Garrett) was broadcast on the UK's BBC Two television network on 27 November 2004,"The Little Prince" (BBC Two England, 27 November 2004 | 19.30), Radio Times, Issue 4210, 25 November 2004, p. 74. as a studio-filmed production starring Joseph McManners as The Prince and Teddy Tahu Rhodes as The Pilot, and later released as a DVD. 2010: Le Petit Prince is the title of a 2010 French animated television series of 52 episodes of 26 minutes each by Method Animation. The Little Prince is voiced by Gabriel Bismuth-Bienaimé, and The Rose by Marie Gillain. 2011: Oliver d'Agay of the Saint-Exupéry–d'Agay Estate, responsible for author's intellectual property and head of the Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Youth Foundation, reached an agreement with the author's original French publisher and others on creating updated adaptations of The Little Prince story. In the new adaptations, The Prince is made more attuned to children of the 21st century and include a new 3D animated movie, as well as the aforementioned new animated TV series in 52 parts, a new video game, and 100 serial print story editions. The TV series is produced in collaboration with France Télévisions, TV5 Monde, the Swiss Télévision Suisse Romande (TSR) and the Italian Rai Fiction, and licensed for distribution in many countries worldwide. The animated movie is titled as Le Petit Prince 4D, produced by nWave Pictures, with effects by Parc du Futuroscope. 2011: Der kleine Prinz is produced for DVD in Berlin, directed by Lorenz Christian Köhler. 2012: The Little Prince TV series was translated into Scottish Gaelic. 2015: The Little Prince was released in 2015 as an animated film. The film is directed by Mark Osborne with its script written by Irena Brignull and Bob Persichetti. The film stars James Franco, Rachel McAdams and Jeff Bridges. 2015: In the Turkish TV drama Eve Dönüş, it's mentioned that The Little Prince is a favorite book of 7-year-old Elif; as such, Pinar/Leyla is shown reading it to Elif at bedtime in episodes 1, 3 and 9, while it's also referenced during episodes 6, 7 and 8. 2023: A 2D-animated spin-off series The Little Prince & Friends produced by the studio who produced the original CGI series Method Animation and the Saint-Exupéry-d’Agay Estate. It premiered first in Italy on Rai Yoyo before premiering in its home country of France on September 1, 2023 on France 5.
Ballet
The novella has been transformed into ballet productions on a number of occasions, including in:
1982: Malenkiy prints ballet with the music of Belarusian composer Yevgeniy Glebov is performed for the first time in Helsinki; next year it was also staged in the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, with Nina Ananiashvili in the cast. 1985: Der Kleine Prinz ballet is performed by the Gregor Seyffert Company Anhalt Theatre in Dessau, Germany 1987: The Los Angeles Chamber Ballet produced The Little Prince for two performances at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, California, choreographed the previous year by Victoria Koenig, Raiford Rogers, Patrick Frantz and Stanley Holden, with a musical score by Lloyd Rodgers. 2010: The Ballet d’Europe performed The Little Prince in a new ballet choreographed by Florencia Gonzalez and performed by nine dancers, with a score by René Aubry. 2012: Les Grands Ballets Canadiens produced the story as ballet, performed at Montreal's Place des Arts venue and choreography by Didy Veldman. It received a mixed reviews in the Toronto Globe and Mail, being said to suffer from "choreographic sameness and evenness of tone." 2014: The Hurjaruuth Dance Theater in Helsinki, Finland created a new production, with direction by Arja Pettersson, expressing the story's elements of friendship, loneliness, the search for happiness and the thrill of life in general, and also depicting adult idiosyncrasies. 2015: The National Ballet of Canada of Toronto, Ontario, Canada announced a future full-length adaptation of the story premiering in its 2015–16 season, to be choreographed by Guillaume Côté, with its score composed by Kevin Lau and its libretto written by Adam Gopnik.
Graphic novel 2008: French artist Joann Sfar drew a graphic novel adaptation of The Little Prince that was released in 2008 by Éditions Gallimard in France. 2012–2015: see The Little Prince (2010 TV series)#Book series
Operas and musical productions