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United States Humperdinck, Hansel and Gretel: Soloists, Children’s Chorus of the Greater Dallas Choral Society, The Dallas Opera Orchestra / Emmanuel Villaume (conductor). Livestreamed (directed by Tim Kelly) from the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House, Dallas, 5.11.2022. (JPr)
Production:
Translation – Richard Sparks
Director, Set and Costume designer – Doug Fitch
Original Lighting designer – Duane Schuler
Revival Lighting designer – Eric Watkins
Assistant director, Choreographer and Dance Captain – Austin Spangler
Principal conductor, Greater Dallas Choral Society – Terrie Preskitt-Brown
Cast:
Hansel – Kangmin Justin Kim
Gretel – Elena Villalón
The Witch and Mother – Patricia Racette
Father – Mark Delavan
Sandman – Lindsay Metzger
Dew Fairy – Gabrielle Gilliam
Solo Dancers – Kayleigh Eidson, Silken Kelly, J. Alexander Langley, Keon Ok. Nickie
There are plenty of methods of now presenting Humperdinck’s Märchenoper (fairy-tale opera) Hansel and Gretel; a director can both ramp up the Gothic horror, or go for an ecological, anti-consumerist method, or like Doug Fitch’s manufacturing for Dallas Opera (through Los Angeles Opera the place it was first staged in 2006) revert to a kids’s storybook look that has Disney cartoon and Sesame Street influences.
Humperdinck was born close to Cologne in 1854 and in 1882 he was musical assistant to Richard Wagner serving to to organize the primary Parsifal performances at Bayreuth. In the Eighteen Nineties, his sister, Adelheid Wette, had written a libretto based mostly on the Grimm fairy-tale, and requested her brother to set it to music as a Christmas leisure for her kids. Later, they determined to show it right into a full-scale opera and Hänsel und Gretel was premiered at Weimar on twenty third December 1893. It was an immediate hit and has remained an everlasting masterpiece. Humperdinck composed different operas however remained a sufferer of this primary large success since nothing else he did fairly matched as much as it. Richard Strauss – who was the assistant conductor for the premiere – referred to as it ‘a masterwork of the first rank’ however Humperdinck’s music owes a lot to Wagner that the rating is nearly an affectionate parody of him at occasions. I appear to listen to various things each time I see and listen to Hansel and Gretel, this time I recognised Das Rheingold and Siegfried (particularly the Forest Murmurs), although there was a lot else moreover. I additionally imagine there is perhaps a direct quote from Mahler’s setting of the Wunderhorn poem Das irdische Leben with the same subject of starvation that Hansel sings about. Both that and the opera have been composed on the similar time, and it will be fascinating to know which truly was first: and all these cuckoos within the second act are absolutely not one other Mahlerian coincidence. All three composers clearly knew one another effectively.
Director Doug Fitch’s designs are a delight and I think there was far more going through the overture than Tim Kelly’s cameras allowed us to see as they have been fixated on the batonless conductor Emmanuel Villaume who almost at all times had his head in his rating and infrequently seemed up. All I significantly observed was video of a flying broomstick and the primary look of the purple gnome we hear about in Richard Sparks’s fashionable English translation, in addition to plenty of unusual vibrant creatures – most with massive luminous eyes – a few of whom have been there to maneuver components of the set round. The religiosity of the unique has been toned down and there are not 14 angels watching over the kids at evening and these are changed by references to the great thing about nature and the protecting spirits surrounding them onstage. Elsewhere, Hansel and Gretel’s well-known dance-song grew to become a ‘Rice Cream Dance’ with the road ‘With my tongue, I’ll lick, lick, lick’ the place you may typically hear one thing like ‘With my foot, I’ll faucet, faucet, faucet.’
The opera begins with a comparatively naked stage other than the again wall of a small home and with all the things apparently made with straw, there are two massive chairs, an equally over-sized desk (with a giant jug) and an array of six broomsticks. The first Disney component comes once they dance alongside Hansel (blue shirt and lederhosen) and Gretel (orange-red prime and yellow-striped skirt) and roam the stage. We first see the Mother as an enormous face projected on the again earlier than she seems for milk to be spilt and in her anger sends her kids off to collect strawberries within the haunted forest. The theme of starvation rears its thought-provoking head as she sings ‘Please help me find food for my poor son and daughter’. The ruddy-cheeked Father earns a slap for being drunk however isn’t the wastrel he appears as he has had such an excellent day promoting the brooms he makes and has purchased the meals all of them want, together with producing a string of sausages from his pocket and having ‘A cake for the children’. He is horrified to be taught they’re away within the forest the place a witch now lives.
The timpani initially of the ‘Witch’s Ride’ will make you consider the giants in Das Rheingold. As the solar went down, we see three big red-capped toadstools while the gnome and different creatures hold watch over the kids who can not discover their approach house at nighttime and are asleep on a bush. The Sandman flies in just like the Woodbird in Siegfried and showers the kids with glitter somewhat than sand. This ‘dream pantomime’ ends the primary half.
The last act opens with the creatures slinking away and Hansel and Gretel being woken up by the Dew Fairy who seemed like an angel atop a really massive Christmas tree lined with white lights. A gingerbread home seems trying as whether it is precisely the cottage of sweet or cake described in Sparks’s translation. The Witch appears to be like like Bette Davis in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? a nightmarish sight (for adults if not for kids) with a brilliant yellow wig which she later amusingly discards and somewhat quick pink tulle skirt. Singing ‘Come, I beg you humbly won’t you be part of my fambly?’, the Witch wields a magic ladle and shortly Hansel and Gretel are underneath her spell and she’s going to flip Hansel right into a blob. (I intend to complete this evaluate by commenting on the musical performances however should point out right here what nice enjoyable Patricia Racette – who additionally sang the kids’s Mother – was clearly having because the Witch flying above the stage on her broom.)
Soon Gretel grabs the ladle and releases Hansel from the spell he’s underneath, earlier than – somewhat too simply – the Witch is conned into climbing into her oven and she or he is despatched with extra of a whimper than a bang. Gingerbread figures fill the stage and are turned again into kids with a contact of Gretel’s ladle and Hansel and Gretel greet their mother and father enthusiastically. The opera ends with all of the saved kids along with the Father proclaiming ‘For our spirits did not fail, so, we lived to tell the tale!’
The manufacturing was recent and carried out with nice dedication by its forged and their singing – as heard by means of loudspeakers – was well-matched by their performing. This Hansel and Gretel benefited enormously from having the sweet-toned countertenor Kangmin Justin Kim as a genuinely boyish Hansel to Elena Villalón’s suitably girly Gretel. They appeared to totally get pleasure from all of the infantile rough-and-tumble initially and all through the opera their voices blended completely. After Villalón’s Gretel is woke up by the Dew Fairy she sang her greeting to the brand new day and displayed some beautiful excessive notes. Patricia Racette was the strict Mother and an absolute hoot because the Witch, her soprano might not have the vocal high quality of earlier in her profession however she hocused-pocused very entertainingly. In his opening track Mark Delavan was a plausible drunk as he extolled the delights of beer and when producing all of the meals he has purchased appeared much less feckless than the character typically can. Delavan’s authoritative bass-baritone oddly appeared to have a little bit hassle chopping by means of the kids’s refrain and Humperdinck’s orchestration within the last moments. Humperdinck offers the Sandman and Dew Fairy probabilities on this opera that it’s just about unattainable to fail in and the limpid voices of Lindsay Metzger and Gabrielle Gilliam made the very best of their alternatives.
Music director Emmanuel Villaume obtained a bewitching efficiency from his Dallas Opera Orchestra that had completely judged tempos and was lovingly nuanced with all of the Wagnerian colourations in Humperdinck’s melodic rating introduced into splendidly centered element.
The livestream had a full programme of fascinating content material earlier than and after the opera, in addition to through the interval, and for details about any future operas on the Dallas Opera streaming service click on right here.
Jim Pritchard
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