| Bread Crumbs Leading To "Hansel and Gretel" |
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| Written by Kevin Filipski | |
Hansel and GretelComposed by Engelbert HumperdinckDirected by Richard Jones Conducted by Vladimir Jurowski Starring Christine Schäfer, Alice Coote, Philip Langridge, Rosalind Plowright, Alan Held Performances on December 24, 29, 2007; January 1, 4, 8, 11, 23, 26, 31, 2008 The Metropolitan Opera West 63rd Street and Broadway metopera.org  Philip Langridge performs as the Witch in "Hansel and Gretel"  The Witch about to eat Hansel for her first meal  Alice Coote performs as Hansel, left, and Christine Schafer as Gretel, during a dress rehearsal of Engelbert Humperdinck's "Hansel and Gretel"  Alice Coote performs as Hansel, back facing left, and Christine Schafer as Gretel, right, in "Hansel and Gretel" The best “Hansel” I’ve seen, at Juilliard, had Maurice Sendak’s gorgeous sets and costumes at its disposal. As “Where the Wild Things Are” attests, Sendak has no equal in visualizing a world of simultaneous beauty and terror seen through children’s eyes. Too bad the Met didn’t import Sendak’s colorfully inspired sets and costumes for its “Hansel,” but instead went with a production created by Richard Jones for Welsh National Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago, which is a cluttered disaster. Jones has visualized each act differently; according to his program notes, act one’s kitchen is based on D.H. Lawrence, act two’s forest comes from Frank Wedekind (“Lulu,” “Spring Awakening”), and act three’s gingerbread house is out of the Theater of the Absurd. “Absurd,” however, could describe the entire production, which is relentlessly grimy and uninteresting, and depressingly grey throughout. Children seated near me seemed bored and confused by a forest with a large wooden table, several “tree men” wearing suits with branches sprouting where their necks and heads should be, and 14 chefs with enormous heads setting up a feast at the table for the sleeping siblings who dream of 14 angels to watch over them. The interior of the witch’s kitchen is dominated by an industrial warehouse oven, table and door at odds with the edible gingerbread treats that would make Hansel and Gretel want to enter this house looking for more sweets to eat. (One large, frosted layer cake that’s pushed through a giant mouth to entice them doesn’t pass muster.) Happily—as with the Met’s “War and Peace”—this is a musically first-rate “Hansel and Gretel,” starting with Vladimir Jurowski’s assured conducting of the Met Orchestra, which superbly paces the drama and black comedy. Australian Alice Coote (Hansel) and German Christine Schäfer (Gretel) sing beautifully, if sometimes awkwardly in David Pountney’s cleverly-rhymed English translation. (Schäfer particularly is difficult to hear with her heavily-accented English.) The children’s chorus that appears at the end sings angelically, and Rosalind Plowright and Alan Held make powerful impressions in the small but pivotal roles of Hansel and Gretel’s parents. Finally, Philip Langridge hams it up hilariously as the witch; suited up in make-up and clothes that make him look like one of the Monty Python bunch in drag, Langridge has a ball planning to bake and eat these unfortunate kids: it’s too bad he only appears in the final act, because he makes an otherwise drab gingerbread house a delightful place to be eaten in. |
