'Hansel und Gretel' returns for holidays

NEW YORK, Dec. 31 (UPI) -- The Metropolitan Opera has dusted off its 1967 production of Engelbert Humperdinck's "Hansel und Gretel" to give a holiday season stuffed with "A Christmas Carol" dramatizations and "Nutcracker" ballet performances a little variety.

Based on one of the German fairytales immortalized by the Brothers Grimm, "Hansel und Gretel" has lived on for more than a century as suitable Christmas fare for generations of children and their parents, notwithstanding the depravity of its climactic gingerbread bakeoff. It is a story of childhood triumphant over the ogres of this world, which accounts for the opera's evergreen popularity.

Humperdinck (1854-1921), a protégé of Richard Wagner who had a hand in the premiere production of "Parsifal," composed seven operas, but only "Hansel und Gretel" and occasionally "Konigskinder," a fairy tale about a goose girl and a prince, are still performed. "Hansel und Gretel" can be seen at the Met through Saturday.

The opera displays the composer's masterful ability to blend simple folk tunes and swelling Wagnerian melodies into a score of surpassing beauty and orchestral interest. There is one transcendent musical motif that coalesces into the famous chorus known as "Children's Prayer" that is reprised over and over again in the opera and in the inner ear of audiences long after they leave the opera house.

Humperdinck had the help of his sister, Adelheid Wette, in providing a libretto based on Grimm's story about a brother and sister who get lost in the woods while picking strawberries and are imprisoned by a witch. It was composed as entertainment for the Humperdinck family and the first performance was in Frankfurt at a private theater.

A revised version was admired by composer-conductor Richard Strauss who asked to conduct its premiere, which he did in Weimar in 1893. Strauss declared it a masterpiece and critics and audiences agreed. The opera was considered one of the most important lyric works to come out of Germany after the Wagner era and was first performed in New York as early as 1895.

There are several good English translations of "Hansel und Gretel," one of which has been used at the Metropolitan in all its performances of the work since World War II. Unfortunately, the original German text is being used in the current production although not one member of the cast has German as a native language and many of the small children in the audience can't be expected to read the seat-back translation and concentrate on the stage at the same time.

The cast is headed by mezzo-soprano Jennifer Larmore as Hansel and soprano Dawn Upshaw as Gretel. Larmore, whose vocal sound is lush and effervescent, comes off best playing a hefty, pre-teen boy who can't help getting into trouble. Upshaw, whose singing is less refined, is unable to convey a childish persona either in appearance or body language, but she handles herself well enough to avoid the description of miscast.

Judith Forst makes a wonderful witch, just beguiling enough to make children believe in her as an eccentric old lady whose gingerbread house is good enough to eat. She reserves her wicked laughter for the moment when she tries to push Hansel und Gretel into her baking oven and gets pushed in herself by the revengeful siblings, thus bringing to life and a victory waltz all the children she has transformed into cookies for her own delectation.

Stephanie Blythe, a mezzo of formidable presence and voice, is cast as Gertrude, the children's exasperated mother, and baritone Kim Josephson makes a wonderfully jovial Peter, their ne'er-do-well broom-maker father. Jossie Perez sings the Sandman with little vocal distinction, and Angela Gilbert, a facile soprano, makes a graceful Dew Fairy. Charles Mackerras' conducts with real feeling for the polyphonic richness of Humperdinck's score.

Designer Robert O'Hearn's fanciful sets and quaint 19th century costumes are a constant pleasure, even if the witch's domicile is more of a multi-spired chateau than a woodland cottage, and Gil Wechler's lighting for the forest scenes are truly magic.

The twilight scene in a clearing surrounded by ancient trees from which 14 angels emerge to form a safe cordon around the sleeping children is one of the Metropolitan's most enchanting scenes, and the wildlife who join the angels in their vigil -- dragonflies, owls, frogs, foxes, and newts -- are cute enough to delight children of all ages.

Perhaps it is time for the Metropolitan or some other American opera company to revive "Konigskinder," for which Humperdinck also used Wagner's music-drama techniques. This opera had its world premiere at the Met in 1910 with the legendary American soprano, Geraldine Farrar, as the Goose Girl. It's not too early to start thinking about a centennial production.