History Theatre / TheTwelveMonths

* SavageWolves: The wolf in the forest is starving, angry, and ready to become man-eater. Fortunately, he is also a coward.

''The Twelve Months'' is a Russian fairytale play by Samuil Marshak, written in 1942-1943 and first performed in 1947. It still remains very popular in the Eastern Bloc, with three film adaptations, an opera by S. Banevich and an opera by R. Shchedrin based on it.

* GenderFlip: January, March, June, September and November are female in the opera (although December still addresses the whole lot as brothers).

* PrettyInMink: Present in the play but explicitly shown in the feature adaptation. The Stepdaughter gets a white-and-silvery fur coat and cap, and April is almost dumbstuck with admiration when he sees her.

* AdorableEvilMinions: The wicked stepsister in the Soviet animated adaptation is very cute, especially compared to her more ObviouslyEvil and appropriately ugly mother. [[spoiler:The difference is retained when they are turned into dogs]].

* AgeLift: The Queen, fourteen years old in the play, is a grown woman who spends time with lovers in the opera.

* SettingUpdate: The opera is set in an AmbiguousTimePeriod, a cross between modern times and the eighteenth century.

** Likewise, in different interpretations the spring months (described as very young in the play) can be any age from preteen to twenty-odd.

* LighterAndSofter: The opera, especially since almost the whole Queen subplot is cut out.

* RelationshipCompression: The opera. In the first act, there's nothing at all to indicate April's feelings for the girl (except that he calls her beautiful, but that's when all the months praise her for some thing or other), or hers for him – the whole plan of helping the girl comes from December, and the heroine lies unconscious in the snow for most of the time. In the second act, April sings her a rushed sort-of serenade and the next thing we know, she's swooning over his ring.

* SiblingTeam: The Months are brothers and always work together, reaching a compromise if any probles arise.

* VagueAge: The Stepdaughter is "not younger than the Queen" (who is around fourteen), and that's all we get. Probably done deliberately, so that the romantic subplot could be played up or downplayed or removed entirely, depending on the production.

* FlowersOfRomance: The anime version depicts April handing a snowdrop to the girl.

* AdaptedOut: In the opera, there are no Ambassadors, no Professor, no Chief Lady-in-Waiting, no Young Soldier, and no talking animals.

* DemotedToExtra and AscendedExtra: In the play, ThePatriarch of the Twelve Months is January, while in the opera it's December, and January has barely several lines. In the play, December only played an essential part in the first scenes.

* AdaptationalComicRelief: The Queen gets that in the opera – originally a SpoiledBrat but behaves better than in the play, also due to an AgeLift she is a FemmeFatale wannabe, and because of her being a grown woman her ridiculous decrees look especially idiotic.

* AbsentMindedProfessor: The Queen's Professor often slips into speaking long and very academic
-sounding words and practically forgets about the point.

* AbsentMindedProfessor: The Queen's Professor often slips into speaking long and very scientific-sounding words and practically forgets about the point.

* AgeLift: The Queen, fourteen years old in the play, is a grown woman who spends time with lovers in the opera. A contrary example: the Stepdaughter, around the Queen's age in the play, is a small child in the 1956 animation.

* BandOfBrothers: The Months.

* CannotSpitItOut: Not once is the word "love" used in the play.
* DamselInDistress: The Stepdaughter since the first scene and almost to the last.

* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: No names are present at all, with only the Twelve Months an exception in a sense. In the Russian-Japanese version, the Stepdaughter gets a name, Anna (as the version added several episodes about the girl's life with her Stepmother and Stepsister, it was probably done to avoid their constant HeyYou).
* EvilSoundsDeep: Dealt with in various ways in the opera.
** Subverted with most of the deep-voiced characters. The overall good-natured Chancellor of the Queen is a baritone, December is a bass-baritone, February, July, as well as a kind Woodcutter are basses, and January and November are mezzos.
** The Queen, a mezzo, is a borderline example.
** The decidedly evil Stepmother is a mezzo.
** However, the Stepsister is a coloratura soprano.
* FlowersOfRomance: The anime version and the feature version both depict April handing the first snowdrop to the girl.
* GodSaveUsFromTheQueen: Very much so, especially if you are in her inner circle. Since most of the actual ruling is done by the ministers, the smallfolk isn't much bothered. The Stepdaughter doesn't even know much about the Queen until the Old Soldier tells her.

* HeelFaceTurn: The Queen in the end, definitely. Maybe, at least in the main heroine's opinion, the Stepmother and Stepsister.

* IncorruptiblePurePureness: The Stepdaughter, as expected.

* LoveBeforeFirstSight: If you remember that the girl had always loved the month of April in general, and the feelings bloomed very quickly when she met his personification.

* RescueRomance: Of ''all'' the flowers the Queen could have wished for, she picked the one that blossoms in April. With the consequences that followed.
* SameCharacterButDifferent: January, March, June, September and November are female in the opera (although December still addresses the whole lot as brothers).

!This play and its adaptations include examples of:

* AdaptationalVillainy: Not outright villainy, but some negative character traits turn up. All months are perfectly good guys in the play (even the winter ones who [[GoodIsNotSoft seem to be harsh at first]]), but in the opera May and June each have a terribly boastful IAmGreatSong.