The little girl with the matches

The little girl with the matches

 A touching story by Hans Christian Andersen, modern staged to Baltic music.
The story is told first, then listed in pantomime.

In a bitterly cold New Year's Eve, a girl runs on bare feet through the streets, trying in vain to sell sulfur sticks. In this emergency the girl stroking a sulfur stick in order to keep warm - and dreamed of a better world ...


Time: 50 min. for adults and children over 6 years

Slideshow

  • It was dreadfully cold, it was snowing, and night was starting to fall on the last day of the year. Amid this cold and darkness, a little girl walked along the street, bare-headed and with bare feet that were red and blue with cold
  • In her apron she carried a quantity of matches, and she also bore a bundle in her hand.
  • She dare not go home, for she had sold no matches and earned not a single penny.
  • In a nook formed by two houses, she sat down and huddled herself up, but she froze even worse. Oh! A match would be so comforting if only she could warm her fingers on one: She drew one out.
  • ...and where the light fell on the wall, it became transparent. The little girl could see straight into the room, where the table was beautifully set and the roast goose was steaming famously.
  • But then the match went out, and all that was to be seen was the cold wall. The little girl lit another match.
  • This time she was sitting under the most magnificent Christmas tree. Thousands of lights were burning on its branches. The little girl reached her hands out towards them – and the match went out.
  • The Christmas lights, however, rose higher and higher, and she now saw them as bright stars in the sky, one of which fell down and formed a trail of fire in the sky.
  • “Now someone will be dying,” said the little girl, for her grandmother, who was now dead, had told her that whenever a star falls from the sky, a soul ascends to God.
  • She struck another match; it flared, and in its light stood her old grandmother, so kind and full of love.
  • She took the little girl in her arms, and they flew in brightness and joy so high, so very high; - and up there, there was neither cold, nor hunger nor fear – they were in peace.