Subject: Haensel und Gretel, Chemnitz, 13Nov97 Peter Egon Schultz Gertrud Heidrun Goepfer Haensel Regine Lehmann-Koebler Gretel Arisa Kusumi Knusperhexe Juergen Mutze Sandmaennchen/Taumaennchen Kerstin Randall Conductor Wolfgang Behrend Director Carla Neppi Robert-Schumann-Philharmonie Chemnitz What I was doing in Chemnitz may one day form the scenario of a minor German romantic work called Der Jagd des wilden Ganses. Formerly Karl-Marx-Stadt, and home of the world's largest monumnental head with a complete nose as well as of the Trabant, it's a town that seems to be doing rather well. The opera house has been open for five years, and consists of a rather understated traditional-looking facade, and a modern interior, with light foyers on each of three levels and very early-nineties black (plastic) wood in the auditorium. The opera program seems to consist of two or three performances a week of opera or operetta, by the local company, plus touring performancs of musicals and the sort of thing you get in civic centers in the UK. I've loved Haensel und Gretel ever since I crewed on a school production in 1970 (spending most rehearsals and performances as page-turner trapped between Heather Thompson the terrifying music teacher and the edge of the stage). I even thought I liked Wagner for a while until I realised that what I liked about Wagner was the Haensel und Gretel stuff -- the delicious melodies that keep letting you come back for more. This production, which I think has been around for a while, did it absolutely straight, emphasising childish appetites and pleasures, with a small nod at the way gobbling gingerbread turns into slurping Kummel. (They left out the parents kissing, which caused great glee in our school production as we got a real live BOY to sing the father.) The set was based on a cutout model theatre, with a woodcut nativity scene with some other cutout images as if pasted on as a front curtain. The costumes and witch's makeup (massive prosthetic nose and chin) were also based on traditional illustrations. Other elements in the decor were Christmassy -- the angels skipped and flitted around before four of them formed the base of one of those rotating chiming decorations that never works because you've lost the glass bit. And as the curtain came down, two angels struck the pose of the much-reproduced baroque angels leaning on a cloud. These kiddy angels were in tune with the general aimiable silliness of the production, which hit the spot with the hundreds of five-to-seven year olds who were at the performance. But I felt it was a small pity to lose the nearly-sublime mood of the angel music. Still, it didn't really have much chance against the non-stop mezzopiano of the audience. This was my first tenor witch, and he was a bit of a letdown -- you could have a great camp pantomine dame witch, not necessarily played by a tenor, but this one, though he rolled about and showed his bloomers, wasn't either threatening or particularly funny. The audience loved the broomstick aria, which involved a bit of basic flying, and cheered when the witch got shoved in the oven, so he can't have been all good. Arisa Kusumi was suitably cute and girly as Gretel. Regine Lehmann-Koebler was rather a hulking Haensel, and in Oxford bags looked more like Jean Gabin than an obnoxious small boy, though she tried with the gestures. She's got quite a lot of voice, and would make a gorgeous Octavian. The orchestra was the real star of this performance. In spite of the continuous noise (good-natured and inevitable), they delivered all the luscious music exactly as I like it. Wolfgang Behrend looks about 23.