AP News, December 25th, 2007
The very first image we see in the Metropolitan Opera's new production of "Hansel and Gretel" is a drawing of an empty plate projected on the curtain with knife and fork on either side.
It's a reminder that hunger is never far from the minds, or stomachs, of the characters in Engelbert Humperdinck's fairy-tale opera — a theme that dominates the imaginative, at times surreal, staging by Richard Jones that premiered Monday afternoon.
All the settings are about food, or lack of it: The opening scene takes place in a kitchen where the children bemoan the empty pantry; the final scene in the Witch's house looks like a food warehouse with industrial-size oven and freezer and a worktable laden with every conceivable type of candy and cake.
But it's Act 2 that finds Jones and set and costume designer John Macfarlane at their most audacious and inspired. This is the scene set in the haunted forest where Hansel and Gretel have been sent by their mother to find strawberries for supper.
Instead of a traditional woodsy setting, we see a large room with a long, bare table in the center, a chandelier made of deer antlers, and walls that are papered with pictures of trees and lined with men who have branches projecting from their heads.
When the lost children settle down to sleep at the foot of the table, instead of 14 angels assembling to watch over them, their guardians are a comically grotesque crew of 14 chefs with oversize hats and inflatable balloon faces. They slowly unfurl a long white tablecloth, then serve a sumptuous meal on silver platters, while the children dress in finery and a frog butler lights the candles.
Perhaps in an effort to restore some of the harsh realism that Humperdinck and his librettist sister Adelheid Wette stripped from the original tale by the Brothers Grimm, Jones introduces a couple of ill-advised touches: the children's mother nearly swallows pills in a suicide attempt, and the father at one point raises his hand to strike her (the English translation by David Pountney makes clear it wouldn't be the first time he has hit her.)
Traditionalists will miss some of the effects that made the Met's previous, 40-year-old production by Nathaniel Merrill and Robert O'Hearn so beloved. Gone are the 14 angels with wings who assembled around the sleeping children. Gone is the cutout of a flying witch who cavorts across the stage in midair. Gone is the exploding oven that signals the witch's demise.
But there's much to enjoy in this production, which Jones and his team originally staged for the Welsh National Opera and which also been performed in San Francisco and Chicago. Peter Gelb, the Met's general manager, is counting on it becoming a holiday staple, joining a condensed version of Mozart's "The Magic Flute" as operas suitable for families with young children.
Certainly, the cast could hardly be improved on. Soprano Christine Schaefer is a radiant Gretel, while Alice Coote roughhouses gamely like a boy and sings with a ripe, plummy mezzo. Sasha Cooke's Sandman is wonderfully sung and acted, dressed as a doddering old man who sprinkles gold dust with a little sigh and seems barely able to keep awake himself. Lisette Oropesa is a sweet-voiced Dew Fairy, who dons rubber gloves to finish off the last night's dishes before awakening the children. The worn fabric of mezzo Rosalind Plowright's voice fits the mother's despairing state well, while Alan Held sounds vibrant as the overbearing father.
The role of the witch is written for a mezzo, but there's a long tradition of entrusting it to a tenor in drag. Philip Langridge, resembling Mrs. Doubtfire, cavorts with such good-natured glee that he's more comical than frightening. And we almost feel sorry for him after the witch is locked inside the oven when he knocks on the glass door, as if certain that the children have made a mistake and will let him back out.
Vladimir Jurowski leads the orchestra in a shimmering account of Humperdinck's masterpiece, a magical mixture of simple folk tunes, exalted melodies and delicate forest sounds combined with the most sophisticated scoring this side of Wagner.
"Hansel and Gretel" will be heard next on Saturday afternoon, when the Met will broadcast the performance on the radio. The opera will be simulcast into hundreds of movie theaters on New Year's Day.
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On the Net:
http://www.metopera.org
