Babar is appointed king of the elephant kingdom and marries his queen Céleste. He learns that their king has died from eating a poisonous mushroom. Babar escapes and leaves his home in the forest, visits a big city and returns to his community of elephants in the jungle. The Story of Babar begins with Babar as a baby, whose mother is killed by a hunter. The simple but poignant story was interspersed with short, dynamic orchestral pieces illustrating the drama of the books – perfect for the attention spans of the 5-10 year olds that occupied the concert hall but also highly entertaining for the accompanying adults. The OSM setting up before the Travels of Babar performanceĪctors Sophie Cadieux and Pierre Brassard narrated the two stories in French. The music was set to stunning HD quality projections of the original watercolours by Brunhoff. The Bibliothèque nationale de Paris, the Morgan Library, the Kendra and Allan Daniel Collection, and several private collectors provided the high-resolution scans of the original watercolours expressly for Mostel’s music arrangements for The Travels of Babar. The young, energetic and versatile Dina Gilbert conducted the roughly ninety musicians that made up the orchestra. The music was performed by one of the world’s greatest orchestras, the Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal (OSM), in one of the finest concert halls in the world. By Jean de Brunhoff, 1932 (Collection BnF, used by permission) This marks the first time both works are on the same program. The performance began with the only other concert-work to have been granted permission by the author’s family: Francis Poulenc’s 1940 composition based on the first book, The Story of Babar: The Little Elephant. Acclaimed composer Raphael Mostel created the musical score and provided the artistic direction for this modern adaptation. “My favorite among Jean’s books, The Travels of Babar, is full of alarming and amusing twists of fate…this is a tour de force,” says Mostel. On Sunday March 15 th, the world premier of the orchestral adaptation of Brunhoff’s The Travels of Babar: Return to the Land of the Elephants, was performed in Montreal’s Maison Symphonique.

By Jean de Brunhoff, 1931 (image from Wikipedia) The book is based on a tale that Brunhoff’s wife invented for their children. Babar first appeared in 1931, in the iconic French children’s picture book, The Story of Babar: The Little Elephant, by author and illustrator Jean de Brunhoff. Babar the elephant has captivated the hearts and imaginations of children all over the world for almost a century.

Original babar the elephant