Ali Baba

Ali Baba (Arabic: علي بابا‎ ʿAlī Bābā ) is a character from the folk tale Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (علي بابا والأربعون لصا). This story is included in many versions of the One Thousand and One Nights, to which it was added by Antoine Galland in the 18th century. It is one of the most familiar of the "Arabian Nights" tales, and has been widely retold and performed in many media, especially for children, where the more violent aspects of the story are often suppressed.

In the story, Ali Baba is a poor woodcutter who discovers the secret of a thieves' den, entered with the phrase "Open Sesame". The thieves learn this and try to kill Ali Baba, but Ali Baba's faithful slave-girl foils their plots. Ali Baba gives his son to her in marriage and keeps the secret of the treasure.

Textual history

The tale was added to the story collection One Thousand and One Nights by one of its European translators, Antoine Galland, who called his volumes Les Mille et Une Nuits (1704–1717). Galland was an 18th-century French Orientalist who may have heard it in oral form from a Middle Eastern story-teller from Aleppo, in modern-day Syria. In any case, the first known text of the story is Galland's French version. Richard F. Burton included it in the supplemental volumes (rather than the main collection of stories) of his translation (published as The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night) and thought its origins were Greek Cypriot.

Ali-Baba

Ali-Baba is an opéra comique in four acts of 1887 with music by Charles Lecocq. The French libretto based on the familiar tale from the Arabian Nights was by Albert Vanloo and William Busnach. After some initial success the work faded from the repertoire.

Performance history

Ali Baba was a popular subject for operas (Cherubini, 1833, Bottesini, 1871), pantomimes and extravaganzas in Paris and London during the nineteenth century. Both librettists were experienced in opéra-bouffe and had previously worked with Lecocq, Busnach from 1866 with Myosotis, Vanloo starting in 1874 with Giroflé-Girofla; the two men had met in 1868 when Vanloo had submitted an opéra-bouffe for consideration to Busnach who was at the time the director of the Théâtre de l'Athénée.

Originally intended for the Théâtre de la Gaîté in Paris, Lecocq's opera was premiered in a sumptuous production at an established home of operetta and revue in Brussels, the 2,500-seat Théâtre Alhambra, on 11 November 1887. It opened at the Éden-Théâtre, Paris, on 28 November 1889 in three acts and nine tableaux with Morlet in the title role and Jeanne Thibault as Morgiane. The Annales critic considered that the first act was the strongest of a dense score which had seven numbers from the first run in Bruseels removed for the Paris production.

Ali Baba (1973 film)

Ali Baba Bengali Short Animated Musical Drama Directed By Rohit Mohra,Asst.Directed By Suprabhat Mukherjee,Written by-Kshirodprashad Bidyabinod,starring Haradhan Bandopadhyay, Sekhar Chattopadhyay, Tarun Kumar, Aparna Sen was released on 1973.

Plot

Ali Baba is a character from the folk tale Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. In the story, Ali Baba is a poor woodcutter who discovers the secret of a thieves' den, entered with the phrase "Open Sesame". The thieves learn this, and try to kill Ali Baba. But Ali Baba's faithful slave-girl foils their plots; Ali Baba gives his son to her in marriage and keeps the secret of the treasure.

Full Story

Ali Baba and his elder brother Cassim are the sons of a merchant. After the death of their father, the greedy Cassim marries a wealthy woman and becomes well-to-do, building on their father's business. Ali Baba marries a poor woman and settles into the trade of a woodcutter.

One day, Ali Baba is at work collecting and cutting firewood in the forest, and he happens to overhear a group of forty thieves visiting their treasure store. The treasure is in a cave, the mouth of which is sealed by magic. It opens on the words "open sesame", and seals itself on the words "close sesame". When the thieves are gone, Ali Baba enters the cave himself, and discreetly takes a single bag of gold coins home.