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Reviews Hansel and Gretel By Engelbert Humperdinck Reviewed by Sherry Deatrick Entire contents are copyright © 2009 Sherry Deatrick. All rights reserved. Disclaimer: This review is based on the final dress rehearsal and is thus a "preview" rather than a review. Engelbert Humperdinck's fairytale opera, Hansel and Gretel, hasn't been seen in Louisville for fourteen years. (It was last performed in 1995.) His sister, Adelheide Wette, wrote what she thought was a more positive version of the grim tale of two abandoned children who meet a cannibalistic witch in the German forest while foraging for food. The opera's message is that no matter how bad things get, God will rescue you. (This is repeated in the opening and closing scenes and several times throughout.) Hey, I told you it's a fairytale. But it's the subtext that's far more interesting and relevant to our troubled economic situation, especially in light of Tom Vilsack's (US Secretary of Agriculture) pronouncement that more Americans than ever face "food insecurity." Perhaps its a portent of things to come as more people are driven to desperate acts by their rumbling, empty stomachs. Things can only get worse as global warming causes more crop failures. So, what happens to our hapless brother and sister who are too hungry to perform their herculean chores? First, their humorless mother returns to find them rolling on the ground instead of making brooms and knitting stockings. (Where did they get the energy to dance and frolic when they've eaten only moldy bread for weeks? It would take less energy to knit a sock and make a broom, probably.) These kids can't be blamed for dreaming of the carefree lives enjoyed by most American children. They long to gorge themselves on sugary snacks and play all day. Enraged by their perceived indolence, Mama accidentally spills a pitcher of milk donated by a neighbor and blames it on the children. She chases them with a broom and beats them, then sends them off to forage for supper in the woods. (And this is the "softened" version. In the original fairytale, the mother convinces her husband to abandon the children in the forest.) The parental home reminded me of Dorothy's Kansas farmhouse in staged productions of The Wizard of Oz. In fact, the opera shares much with that archetypical story, although it was written prior to the Oz series, and well before Hollywood's version. I assume that over the years, the opera has evolved to include these references. For example, the Witch's pet winged monkey, who helps her tie up the children, is a dead ringer for one of the Wicked Witch of the West's helpers. The pair become lost in a German Expressionist forest of tall trees with scary faces that appear from the strategically cut holes that indicate branches. The image of menacing trees is repeated on the scrim, and as it waves slightly, the trees seem to be reaching out to grab you. A Sandman sprinkles sand around and the children fall asleep in the forest. Angels bathed in a golden-pink light descend a curved staircase while one "flies" around them, and watch over the children in a peaceful tableau ending Act One. Act Two is much more lively, with the entrance of the Witch who bakes children into gingerbread cookies. The Witch's puns about cannibalism are probably over most of the heads of the young audience members, and they didn't seem to be traumatized by the dark undercurrents of this story, but laughed loudly at the fun aspects of the tale. The tempting gingerbread house, the Witch's infectious sing-song call ("Crunchy crunchy mousie, who's eating my housie"), and the flying dew fairy kept them from thinking too hard about the ominousness of a Witch who brags that the neighbors think she's an upstanding citizen because she brings cookies to the PTA. Yes, this translation plays fast and loose with the original German. I'm pretty sure there wasn't a PTA in Weimar in 1893. Sometimes, the modern cultural references are appealing but more often they are confusing and too "clever." Because this was a dress rehearsal, it is unfair to criticize the performances. Suffice to say, Anya Matanovic was in strong voice as Gretel, although a bit wooden. Leah Wool is charismatic as Hansel, but was uneven in projecting over the orchestra. Victoria Livengood stole the show as the wise-cracking, child-eating Witch. Her over-the-top style appealed to the children in the audience but lent a musical comedy slant that seems out of place in an opera. But, taking the high-browness out of the opera makes it more accessible to children, I suppose. I would mention the names of the performers behind the parents, but the program for the dress rehearsal is printed in such a tiny font, on green paper, as to be practically illegible. In any event, both were terrific. I left the theater humming the drunken father's "lalalala" refrain.
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