After Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso and many others, it is the turn of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry to be entitled to his “immersive” exhibition in Montreal. The little prince among men presents the life and work of this literary giant, aviation pioneer and adventurer, who died on July 31, 1944 when his plane crashed in the Mediterranean Sea.
A true classic having reached legendary status, The little Prince is described as the best-selling and most translated book after the Bible. Any event featuring the hero created by Saint-Exupéry almost instantly turns into a popular success.
Thursday morning, fans of Little prinse were lining up to enter the exhibition, presented at least until June 30 — and until the beginning of 2025, promoter Tandem hopes — at Place Bonaventure. These people paid $35.79 for their ticket, but the fare rises to $54.99 during peak times. A family package is also offered at a lower cost.
“The essential is invisible to the eye,” wrote Saint-Exupéry — and there is a price to pay to access it, one might add. Producer Paul Dupont-Hébert, of Tandem, who designed the exhibition, explains that The little Prince has become a “brand” with its own marketing rules.
The promoter indicates that the production of this exhibition costs him approximately $1 million, including copyright, transportation of works, room rental and labor. He estimates that between 30,000 and 40,000 visitors will come to admire the extracts from the book, the film and the artifacts exhibited in Montreal.
People are trying to reduce their spending due to inflation over the past three years, but they continue to attend shows or events that do them good, emphasizes Paul Dupont-Hébert. They need comfort with the crises raging around the world.
“People have less money. We see it at the grocery store, everyone only talks about it. But people choose what they want. They come to musicals a lot. French song still works very well. At the Bell Centre, there are also plenty of successful businesses,” explains the veteran producer.
A life of adventure
The little Prince de Saint-Exupéry “is a seller of souvenirs very present throughout the planet because of the symbolism that it represents: philosophy on nature, on the stars, on animals. There is something that will surpass time” in this work translated into 457 languages, underlines Mr. Dupont-Hébert.
The writer, journalist and aviator was born on June 29, 1900 in Lyon. Engaged in the French air force during the Second World War, he disappeared during a reconnaissance mission in the south of France, at the age of 44. The wreckage of the P-38 Lightning was only found in May 2000 at the bottom of the Mediterranean.
Saint-Exupéry was a pioneer in aviation, delivering mail between France and Africa, then to South America. He survived multiple incidents in this era of trial and error in aviation. The exhibition The little prince among men highlights the inspiration from long hours of solitude that led to classics like Night flight, Land of men (name given to the Montreal Universal Exhibition in 1967) or The little Prince, published in New York in 1943.
Visitors to Place Bonaventure can see certified copies of letters, manuscripts and even the prototype “flying bicycle” imagined by the young Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. He ran away on a (non-flying) bicycle from home at the age of 12 to the nearby airport, where he convinced a pilot to take him on his first flight.
Spiritual quest
“There is only one problem, only one, in the world. Give men a spiritual meaning again,” wrote this humanist.
Visitors met Thursday at the exhibition The little Prince say they had a good time. The entry price reduced by around twenty dollars compared to that of large crowds contributed to their happiness.
“There is a lot of work in this exhibition, it is obvious that a lot of people have worked on it. I learned a lot of things, it’s educational,” says Consuelo Guenther, originally from Peru – and who has the same first name as Saint-Exupéry’s wife, who was born in Argentina.