Sredni Vashtar - Adaptations

Adaptations

"Sredni Vashtar" has been adapted as a chamber opera three times. In 1988 the composer Robert Steadman and the author Richard Adams wrote the 75-minute Sredni Vashtar. In 1996 Cuban-born composer Jorge Martin and librettist Andrew Joffe with the American Chamber Orchestra produced Beast and Superbeast, a group of four chamber operas based on stories by Saki, including "Sredni Vashtar". Martin also composed a Piano Fantasy on Sredni Vashtar In 2010 the story was again adapted by Nicholas Pavkovic and Jim Coughenour and performed at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

This story was adapted for American television and aired on a ghost anthology series called Great Ghost Tales, in the summer of 1961. It was the basis of the 1979 horror film The Orphan, also known as Friday the 13th: The Orphan, by the director John Ballard. In 1981, the short film Sredni Vashtar by British director Andrew Birkin won a BAFTA award and was nominated for an Oscar. In 2003 Angela M. Murray produced a version of the story in the Tartan Shorts series for the BBC, set in Scotland and including shadow puppetry. "Sredni Vashtar" was further adapted with two other Saki stories for a 2007 broadcast on BBC4 titled Who Killed Mrs De Ropp?

This story also inspired film directors of the Czech Republic three times: Vaclav Bedrich made a cartoon film in 1980, Martin Faltyn made a graduating featuring movie in 1981 (graduating VGIK) and in 1995 also Pavel Marek made this story like a graduating film on FAMU.

It was adapted as a single narrative song for the Musical "Saki Shorts" by John Gould and Dominic McChesney. The one serious item in the show, it stays faithful to the story with the addition of a twist at the last line that hints it is being sung by (the adult) Conradin himself.