About
Site Navigation
Each of the tabs at the top of the screen contains separate sections of the project. The ‘METHODOLOGY’ tab describes the process and progress of the site. It shares information regarding how the site was developed, the research conducted, and the visual development of the research analysis. The ‘TEXT’ tab contains the relevant text from War and Peace that is being compared to the musical score of “Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812.” The ‘ANALYSIS’ tab features the results and conclusions of the study through generated visualization and prose.
Background
Originating from Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, “Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812” is a musical adaptation following the eighth part of Tolstoy’s most famous work. As one of the many musicals that follow the pipeline of best-seller to Broadway, a person must ask oneself how this production made its way to the stage despite the convoluted storylines it contains. The production began its Broadway run in November of 2016 as a tremendous hit, receiving 12 Tony award nominations (including Best Musical, Best Original Score, and Best Book of a Musical) and winning two awards (Best Scenic Design and Best Lighting Design). The musical then proceeded to close less than a year later.
However, the history of the musical began long before its mark on Broadway, starting with its first run in 2012 off-Broadway. Going even further back, specifically 143 years, was the first publishing of the novel in its entirety. Though the musical only focuses on part eight of War and Peace, the novel as a whole narrates the tale of a turbulent Russia. The story follows a slew of aristocratic characters as they make their way through the French invasion of Russia and the Napoleonic Era’s impact on the following Tsarist regimes. The eighth part of the novel, from which Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 is derived, is about the complications and trials of romance and searching for the meaning of life, as portrayed by the vast array of characters.
This project takes a look at the section of the book from which the musical is derived as well as the musical itself, and the overlap that exists between the two works. How much of the musical was taken from the book? How often are overlapping characters referred to/mentioned in both the book and the musical? How are certain characters addressed by other characters in the musical versus the novel? These are the questions this project strives to answer through the use of XML to markup the text, as well as SVG to conduct and visualize our research (for more information about project development, see the methods section).
Russian Naming Conventions
The pieces used in this project include Russian names, containing multiple forms. These forms consist of but are not limited to a given name, family name (dependent on the individual’s gender), patronymic (formed from the father’s name), and nickname.
Bibliography
Fosse, E., Schwarz, E., Leatherbarrow, M., and Montoni, M. (2022, September 13).
Natasha. GitHub. Retrieved December 8, 2022, from
https://github.com/esutton32/Natasha.
Malloy, D. (2017, May 19).
Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 (Original Broadway Cast Recording).
Genius. Retrieved December 8, 2022, from
https://genius.com/albums/Original-broadway-cast-of-natasha-pierre-and-the-great-comet-of-1812/Natasha-pierre-the-great-comet-of-1812-original-broadway-cast-recording.
Tolstoy, L. (2001, April 1). War and Peace. Project Gutenberg.
Retrieved December 8, 2022, from https://www.gutenberg.org/
W3Schools.
(1999). HTML Tutorial. HTML tutorial. Retrieved December 8, 2022, from
https://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp