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Humperdinck, Hänsel und Gretel (Second Cast): Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, conducted by Robin Ticciati. Royal Opera House, London 11.12.2008 (JPr)

Alice Coote as Hansel and Camilla Tilling as Gretel

Ebenezer Scrooge  blamed ‘a crumb of cheese’ for his visions during the night on Christmas Eve but I have no excuse for feeling that if these are the first performances of Hansel and Gretel at Covent Garden since 1937 and that if this is the best that the company can do,  then I hope it is another 70 - odd years before they have another go at it. Joint Director Patrice Caurier has said ‘You can’t put sugar on sugar’, but to replace most of the sugar with salt and vinegar to leave a sour taste in the mouth misses the point of  Humperdinck’s Märchenoper (fairytale opera).

Humperdinck was born near Cologne in 1854. In 1882 he was musical assistant to Richard Wagner and helped prepare the first performances of Parsifal. In the 1890s, his sister, Adelheid Wette, had written a libretto based on the Grimm fairytale, and asked her brother to set it to music as a Christmas entertainment for her children. Later,  they decided to turn this modest home project into a full-scale opera and Hansel and Gretel premièred on 23rd December 1893 at Weimar.  It was an instant hit and has remained an enduring masterpiece. Humperdinck composed other operas,  yet  Hänsel und Gretel made him a victim of his own success as nothing else he did quite matched up to it.  Richard Strauss, who was the assistant conductor for the première, called it ‘a masterwork of the first rank’ but Humperdinck’s music owes so much to Wagner that the score is almost an affectionate parody at times of Der fliegende Holländer, Siegfried and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. And was it just my ears or is there also a direct quote from Mahler’s setting of the Wunderhorn poem Das irdische Leben composed at around the same? The poem deals with the similar topic of hunger that Hansel is singing about at the same time.

I understand that The Royal Opera suggests that nobody under the age of eight should be brought to their Christmas show although strangely at least one article in the opera programme was aimed at pre-teens. I cannot imagine any child other than those having the most sheltered TV-free existence,  being frightened by this dull evening if that is what they are really suggesting. More likely, children would be bored and restless and the chance to entice them into the world of opera would be lost.

Perhaps it was an under-rehearsed second cast that was the problem as critics on the first night (including Seen and Heard's  Mark Berry. Ed) seemed to have responded better than me:  though I fear I am right and they are wrong. Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier's staging is low on production values worthy of Covent Garden, low on charm, magic, insight and chills. Although youngsters in the audience see Hansel being force-fed to fatten him up like a Goose for cooking, and the witch baked into an enormous cake after being pushed into one of her huge ovens,  they are unlikely to be particularly scared even if they do not know the story in advance.

Perhaps Joint Directors Moshe Leiser and Caurier, from Paris and Antwerp respectively, do not want to acknowledge childhood innocence for some reason or what constitutes a nightmarish world for children. I do not want anything remotely resembling kitsch of course, but I would like  to have seen something more honest to the guiltless schmaltzy purity of the score. I am not averse either to linking this to some sort of soap opera reality and if there have to be dollops of  hunger, abuse, paedophilia or the Holocaust then I reckon  that most children would sadly already  know that the world is not always a welcoming place for them.

The credit crunch seems to have strangled Christian Fenouillat’s set designs too and Agostino Cavalca’s costumes were a Charity shop mix of traditional and modern. Act I is set in a restricted bedroom for Hansel and Gretel complete with a strange perspective. The opposite walls are pink and apart from the large beds everything is very bare and clean. Act II has a crudely painted box-like forest setting with a backcloth of ‘moving’ trees similar to that you might find in any ‘Babes in the Wood’ pantomime at this time of the year. The Sandman is a cross between Topo Gigio and Mr Spock (if in doubt Google these characters and use your imagination) and the dream sequence in the forest is rather poorly staged. Humour is also in short supply during Acts I and II and as the Sandman scene goes on it raises a laugh though not perhaps for the right reason. The guardian angels are basically conventional types in white but with the heads of  squirrels and cheap Christmas lights on their wings. The forest glade is transformed into a cosy festive living room with a roaring log fire; Hansel and Gretel’s Mother and Father sit in comfy armchairs handing to each of their lost and hungry children a gift-wrapped Christmas present of a simple sandwich!

Simona Mihai as the Dew Fairy

In Act III, the Dew Fairy seems to have wandered in dressed as the fairy godmother from Cinderella and is coutured in shocking pink with rubber gloves, a spray can and a cleaners’ trolley. The Witch is a rather batty old woman well past her sell-by-date,  who appears first with bare (false) breasts which she  thankfully covers with a blue cardigan. She uses a Zimmer frame to coax the children into thinking she is helpless -  though how frightening any modern child thinks someone like that  would be is open to question. Inside the Gingerbread house there is a huge ‘chilling’ freezer of children hanging ready to be cooked, a larder of gingerbread confections she had prepared earlier and two large industrial-sized ovens. Fanny Craddock, sorry the Witch, casts her spells with her Marigold gloves but eventually is consigned to the flames, the ‘kitchen’ collapses, the gingerbread children come back to life of course and here the children’s chorus sang appealingly if a little self-consciously. Hansel and Gretel are united with their parents and it all end happily as everyone sings ‘When the need is greatest, God puts out his hand’.

I wish the singing and characterisations had been better too; Hansel and Gretel were poorly matched physically and vocally. Alice Coote as Hansel hardly looked as if she could have been hungry for long and was so much like a petulant boyish lout that it was frightening in a wrong way; she has a warm, very ample mezzo voice whilst Camilla Tilling (Gretel) was suitably cute and winsome. I will admit their voices blended attractively on occasions such as the ‘Evening Prayer’ but only Ms Coote’s carried through the orchestra when playing at its loudest.

As their father Peter, Eike Wilm Schulte was completely devoid of bucolic charm and as their mother, Gertrud, Irmgard Vilsmaier seemed to have forgotten that she is just supposed to be a stern and scolding parent and not singing one of Wagner’s Valkyries. Two Jette Parker Young Artists sang the Sandman and the Dew Fairy, Eri Nakamura was ill-at-ease as the former probably because of her grotesque puppet-like costume but Simona Mihai was a better and quite appealing Dew Fairy.

Ann Murray as the Witch was another singer who believed that belting out the words was the best way to get through the role and her spell ‘Hocus pocus, holderbush’ made little impact. Admirably though, she entered the spirit of the character she was given and brandished her Zimmer frame enthusiastically.

Robin Ticciati, apparently a new young British wunderkind who I understand is a protégé of both Sir Simon Rattle (whom he resembles in his mentor's younger days) and Sir Colin Davis who conducted the first night of this new production with the alternative cast. The Covent Garden debutant attempted an apt romantic lushness, highlighted Humperdinck’s Meistersinger - ish counterpoint well and made the dances suitably spirited. He just about found the right balance between weight and whimsy, although from where I sat close to the action,  the brass seemed to blare out a bit too strongly. For me however, Hansel and Gretel should be more conversational than bombastically Wagnerian and here Robin Ticciati, probably following Colin Davis’s lead, went wrong. On the plus side,  I understand that he must have been quicker than his mentor on the first night as Acts I and II were barely one hour long and Act III was over inside 45 minutes - though for too many reasons a short evening has never seemed so long.

I have been unable to hide my considerable disappointment over this new production at Covent Garden so the best I do is to suggest is that readers make their own decisions about whether I am right or wrong.  The production can be seen either in the theatre with seat prices up to £110 or  at the cinema see Cast A. The Cast A performance will also be  broadcast on Christmas Day on BBC 2.

Jim Pritchard  

BBC 2 TV will broadcast Hänsel und Gretel on Thursday 25 December at 3pm. Hänsel und Gretel will be relayed live into cinemas on Thursday 16 December at 7.30pm. More details are of cinema screenings are Here.

Pictures © Bill Cooper

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