Hansel and Gretel

A different sort of Witch

We went to the opera yesterday afternoon to see Hansel and Gretel. The opera preview podcast had prepared us for an interesting and "edgy" production. Instead of a gingerbread cottage in the forest, the witch's house was a supermarket stack of junk food.  Hansel and Gretel lived in a cardboard box.

 
The opera music was composed in 1893 by Engelbert Humperdinck (not be be confused with the pop music star of the same name) and the libretto was written by his sister, based on Grimm's fairy tale.  Everyone knows that old story, but the opera is loved for its beautiful music, sometimes described as "Wagner lite."

When the frightened children are lost in the dark forest, they say their evening prayers and fall asleep after a visit from The Sandman.  What follows is one of the loveliest and most famous orchestral interludes in all of opera, the Traumpantomime.  If you have time, here's a performance by The Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra.

Fourteen angels come out and arrange themselves around the children to protect them while they sleep. In a traditional production, the staging might look something like this-- just a dreamy and quiet interlude for the music.

But as our children slept yesterday, fourteen TV screens came down from heaven, and instead of angels hovering there were videos of greedy little mouths eating donuts, cake, candy, cookies and so on.  Of course it was funny, I snickered too, but it was hard to appreciate the opera's musical highlight when people were howling with laughter.  Sorry I don't have a picture.

During intermission when John was in the restroom, and elderly man came over struck up a conversation.  (I guess that's how it's going to be from now on :-)  He seemed baffled by the production, and asked me what I thought.  I admitted I was a traditionalist, and liked seeing the same old operas done in the same old way.  But I tried to keep an open mind, and understood the need to bring in a younger audience to replace us traditionalists. The casting and singing was excellent, the most important part of an opera, anyway.  So we had an enjoyable afternoon.

The only thing we missed was the Seahawk game, but sounds like that wasn't a big loss.