Metropolitan Opera Preview: Hansel and Gretel

Cannibalism repurposed as holiday entertainment.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Delicious thoughts: A moment from Act II of Hansel and Gretel. 
Photo by Cory Weaver © 2017 The Metropolitan Opera.

The Met revives Humperdinck's fairy tale (in English) in this fractured production by director Richard Jones. More cake?

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Hansel and Gretel

The Metropolitan Opera revives a nightmare before Christmas.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Appetizer for destruction: Robert Brubaker returns as the Witch in the Met's
revival of Hansel and Gretel. Photo by Marty Sohl © 2011 The Metropolitan Opera.

When I was growing up, the Met's production of Hansel and Gretel (by Otto Schenk) was something to see, with a gorgeous gingerbread house, imaginative animal costumes, and a dream ballet featuring realistic-looking angels that brought tears to the eyes of the most jaded adult. For decades, Engelbert Humperdinck's fairy-tale opera stood as a stalwart family favorite at the Metropolitan Opera House, as traditional as the massive tree that adorns the Grand Tier promenade in December.

Opera Review: A Short Scissor Cut

The Met's trimmed-down Barber of Seville.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

"He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom."--J. R. R. Tolkien

Opera is a drag! The cast (l.r.: Rodion Pogossov, Alek Shrader, Isabel Leonard, John del Carlo) in Act II of
Rossini's The Barber of Seville. Photo by Ken Howard © 2012 The Metropolitan Opera.

In 1969, the Italian musicologist Alberto Zedda stewarded a critical edition of Rossini's 1816 masterpiece, The Barber of Seville. This edition clarified and codified the composer's original intentions, putting lost arias back in their right and proper place and ensuring the future of this beloved comic opera for years to come.

Given the Metropolitan Opera's penchant for textual accuracy under the reign of music director James Levine, it was surprising that the company chose Barber as this year's "family-friendly" holiday presentation.  This new edition of the score (by J. D. McClatchy) translates the show into English and cuts it by an hour. The cuts are occasionally seamless, but more often brutal.

Mr. McClatchy axes two-thirds of the famous Overture and halves most of the arias, omitting repeats or having singers start numbers at the cabaletta. Gone: Don Basilio's bass aria "La calunnia", Berta's "Il vecchioto" and whole chunks of Figaro's "Largo al factotum." Musically speaking, the effect is like a skilled amputation--you're not supposed to look too closely. The translation of Cesare Sterbini's original text is generally well done and sing-able, although the patter songs are awkward.

Opera Review: Can it Core a Apple?

The Met's new Hansel and Gretel

Ooh! Cake! The hell-mouth from Hansel and Gretel.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2007 The Metropolitan Opera.

The Metropolitan Opera's new production of Hansel and Gretel (which is actually imported from the Welsh National Opera) tosses out the traditional gingerbread staging in favor of an edgy surreal fairy-tale world that owes debts to Salvador Dali and Saw.

The controversial staging, however, is overwhelmed by the quality of this first-rate cast and the Met's always-reliable orchestra. Everything in Richard Jones' staging is fixated on food, from the opening scene where the children are starving in a bare Honeymooners kitchen to the "dream ballet" where the angels descend to earth in the form of portly chefs, each bearing a delicacy on a silver charger. (As far as we could tell from our Family Circle perspective, none of them were leftover props from Salome.)

Visually, this ain't subtle. The Witch's Ride is represented as a huge, lipless, screaming mouth--a nightmare image that recalls Edvard Munch's paintings as well as the Rolling Stones' Andy Warhol logo. The forest is a giant, menacing dining room tricked out in green leafy wallpaper with an antler-chandelier straight out of Twin Peaks. And the dream ballet is led, inexplicably by a half-man-half-sardine wearing a very nice tuxedo.

The conducting and vocal performances were anchored by Alan Titus' sturdy Father and Philip Langridge's bring-down-the-house turn as the Witch. This great British tenor looks and acts like he's stepped out of a John Waters film.

However, one wonders why the Met decided to cast Christine Schäfer, a talented German singer for a production staged in English? She sings well opposite the boorish, rambunctious Hansel of Alice Coote, but sounds uncomfortable in another language. Vladimir Jurowski led a strong, Wagnerian performance from the Met pit. The enthusiasm of the brass section proved an even greater menace to the singers than the Witch.