View: Next message | Previous message Next in topic | Previous in topic Next by same author | Previous by same author Previous page (March 1999, week 5) | Back to main OPERA-L page Join or leave OPERA-L Reply | Post a new message Search Options: Ê Chronologically | Most recent first Proportional font | Non-proportional font ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 23:49:22 +0000 Reply-To: "H.E.Elsom" Sender: Discussion of opera and related issues From: "H.E.Elsom" Subject: Hansel and Gretel, Sadler's Wells, 31Mar99 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Gretel Linda Kitchen Hansel Imelda Drumm Mother Mary Lloyd-Davies Father Robert Poulton Sandman/Dew Fairy Mary-Louise Aitken Witch Nigel Robson Conductor Vladimir Jurowski Producer Richard Jones This was the Welsh National Opera production which was broadcast on television at Christmas, and which Andrew Cooper reviewed recently. It was strange seeing Hansel and Gretel on a beautiful evening in Holy Week, especially after a Lenten binge on Parsifal. Hansel is the essence of Christmas, with saturated colours and angels, and too much rich food and music, which is still wonderful, even against a background of family tension. But Humperdinck wrote ten bars of Parsifal. You could say that his Weihnachtsfestspiel turns the grail quest upside down and glorifies appetite instead of asceticism. The children's appetites are essentially good and positive, while the witch, like Klingsor, overdoes it completely. The parents, like Amfortas, show the right impulses in the process of being corrupted. In Richard Jones' production, the angels at the end of act 2, with their echoes of the Parsifal grail music, are cooks serving a feast. I found the WNO production even more engaging in the theatre than on television. Hansel and Gretel's play and fighting (convincing, and justified by the music), mother's despair and father's drunkenness, and everything about the witch were on a large scale that had a physical force in a live performance that got lost on the small screen. This wasn't a soothing production. There was an uncomfortable tension between the children, and the mother and the witch looked similar, as often these days. Vladimir Jurowski and the WNO orchestra gave an enchanting performance, with every theme separate and the gorgeous counter-melodies getting full weight. Andrew Cooper commented that Linda Kitchen seemed to lose her voice during the second act, and I think I noticed something similar. If Andrew hadn't pointed it out, I would have assumed it was a problem with the building, as she seemed to fade in and out. But she started off rather gurgly, and may simply still have been suffering from something. Mary-Louise Aitken also wasn't quite audible at some points (at least from where I was at the very top of the house), but she had a magical soothing tone as the Sandman (sounding completely unlike the unpleasant puppet she worked) and amusingly perky as the washing-up-liquid commercial Dew Fairy. Imelda Drumm as Hansel was splendid, forceful vocally and obnoxiously laddish. The parents both gave Wagner-class performances. Nigel Robson was extremely funny and stomach-turning as the witch, doing a Fanny Cradock turn with Gretel's assistance. Also oddly, I found myself thinking of Kuhle Wampe during this performance. Maybe it was the roughly 1930s decor, particularly in act 1, and the children's German youth-organization clothes, against the background of poverty. (Hansel was written during the real Great Depression, of the early 1890s.) Or maybe it was Eisler's use of Gretel's riddle song in the montage where the young woman reflects on parenthood as she decides whether to have an abortion. This performance was attended by Prince Charles and by William Hague and Ffion Jenkins, both formerly of the Welsh Office. I think all of them were invited by the sponsors Amoco. The Sadler's Wells theatre is almost finished now, but the crowded tables overloaded with flowers in the first circle foyer still looked out of place in the tatty environment. Regards, Helen H.E. Elsom he@helsom.demon.co.uk http://www.helsom.demon.co.uk/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Back to: Top of message | Previous page | Main OPERA-L page ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Powered by LISTSERV(R)] Back to the [CataList - online list search] LISTSERV home page at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU.