Fairy tale in three scenes
Libretto by Adelheid Wette after the brothers Grimm
World premiere 23rd December 1893 in Weimar
This production first seen October 12 2014
Sung in German with German & English surtitles
an introductory talk starts in the Holzfoyer 30 mins before performances begin and is available here and everywhere podcasts can be found
Conductor Alden Gatt / Thomas Guggeis
Hänsel Karolina Makuła / Bianca Andrew
Gretel Karolina Bengtsson
Peter, Broom-Maker Sebastian Geyer / Liviu Holender
Gertrud, his Wife Claudia Mahnke / Juanita Lascarro
Witch Peter Marsh
Sandman Ruby Dibble°
Dew Fairy Younji Yi°
°Member of the Opera Studio
Humperdinck's opera's not quite the same story that you might have heard as a child: Hänsel and Gretel are alone at home, supposedly working. They get hungry waiting for their mother to make some rice pudding, so start to dance and play to pass the time. Their mother comes back. Her disobedient children make her so cross that she smashes the milk jug and sends them off to collect berries in the woods. Their father comes home after selling brooms, with lots of food. He reproaches his wife when he hears that the children are in the woods. They set off to find them. Evening in the wood. Hänsel and Gretel play and gobble up all the berries they collected. They get scared when it starts getting dark and realise they're lost. The Sandman appears and sends them to sleep. The children see angels in a dream. Dawn arrives with the Dew Fairy. Hänsel and Gretel find the witch's house and begin to eats bits of it. The witch appears, pretending to be friendly; the children don't trust her and are put under a spell. Hänsel's locked up and Gretel must work for the witch. When she tells her to check on the oven Gretel pretends to be so stupid that the witch has to show her how to do it, and Gretel pushes her inside. The spell over the other lost children is broken. Their parents find them and everyone rejoices.
Engelbert Humperdinck, a Wagner fanatic, eventually gave in to his sister Adelheit Wette’s pleas to set her verses for a fairy tale to music in the early 1890s. It went down so well when performed to friends and family that he decided to expand on it and, a few years later, turned it into an opera. Director Keith Warner’s brother and sister look back on their childhood in an orphanage. Confronted with their fears, alone in the dark after being sent into the woods by their angry foster mother, they outsmart a children-guzzling witch. They revisit the world of memories as adults, now strengthened to deal with the rest of their lives.
