The hit piece will be set soon after its film adaption’s world premiere
Literally months after premiering in cinemas and a year and a half after debuting on “Netflix”, the musical “Matilda” will premiere in Bulgaria on the Sofia Opera and Ballet stage, on the 27th of March. 36 children gathered in two ensembles will perform in the musical and will bring Roald Dahl story to life on stage together with the adult artists.
This great challenge is made possible thanks to the “Talasamche” children’s vocal-theatrical formation created thirty years ago by Dimitar Kostantsaliev which regularly provides the Sofia Opera with children’s choirs and children singers and actors to star in musical performances.
“Matilda” became the basis for a popular movie starring Danny De Vito back in 1994 and was later reinvented as a musical on the Royal Shakespeare company stage with score by Tim Minchin and expressive dance numbers. In a short period of time, “Matilda” became a hit at “West End”, toured all over the world and won the “Tony” award in the USA and 47 other theatrical awards. In the new film version, Emma Thompson stars in one of the main roles.
“Even though the Sofia Opera bought the rights to the musical, we’re not making your typical licensed performance but a production of our own, with our own decors and costumes as well as choreography whose author is Riolina Topalova”, performance director Yuliya Krasteva commented for “24 chasa”.
According to her, many musicals become hits because their music is very close to a child’s worldview. The story of the girl Matilda is contemporary: the novel was first published in 1988.
What the audience likes about the story is that Matilda, unwanted by her own parents, develops an extremely high intelligence, bordering with paranormal abilities. She learns to read at the age of four but when she asks her parents to buy her books, they decline under the pretext that you can see everything that interests you on TV. In the first grade, Matilda goes to a school with a nasty director: Miss Trunchbull, who punishes children in especially cruel ways. However, Matilda possesses the intelligence and bravery to create mischief thanks to her abilities and this makes her fellow students’ imagination go wild. The only adult who supports Matilda is Miss Honey, her teacher (performed by Vesela Delcheva).
The two performers of the role of Matilda: Marta Vateva and Nikol Veselinova, are known the Sofia Opera audience from their performances in the musical “The Sound of Music”.