The Metropolitan Opera’s current General Manager, Peter Gelb,
has turned the Met into New York’s hottest ticket. A host of new
productions, top stars and shrewd publicity campaigns have helped
the Met to reclaim its role as the USA’s premier opera house.
Perhaps Gelb’s greatest legacy, however, will be his access initiatives.
He brought forward an abridged, English-language version of The
Magic Flute for January 2007, specifically aimed at introducing
younger children to opera. Such an initiative would have been
unheard of under Joe Volpe, his predecessor, and by all accounts
it was a great success. However, his widest-ranging access initiative,
and the one which other houses around the world are following,
has been the Live-in-HD cinema relays. The Met has used these
to open its doors to viewers around the world who would never
be able to attend a performance in the house. While expensive
for a cinema ticket (UK shows average around £25) the Met relays
are hugely popular and provide quite a unique experience. The
ones I’ve attended have had a friendly, relaxed atmosphere, with
music lovers getting together in a casual environment to enjoy
great music performed by great artists. What’s more, it’s an actual
live performance you’re watching, unlike a DVD, so there is a
frisson of expectation and the knowledge that anything can go
wrong. The picture and sound quality are fantastic and, as one
newspaper reviewer put it, it’s not like having the best seat
in the house: it’s like having all the best seats in the house
at once. The viewer is also guided around the work by a celebrity
interviewer, normally a star singer, and we are taken backstage
and given interviews with the principals. The Met have just released
a series of the 2007-8 HD relays onto EMI DVDs, at a low price,
and they work just as well in the living room.
Hansel and Gretel was Gelb’s New Year treat for 2008, and
this DVD was originally relayed on New Year’s Day itself. It’s
Richard Jones’ dark production which started life at WNO, and
our host is the pulchritudinous Renée Fleming. It’s in English,
another outreach endeavour, and Fleming declares it an “intriguing
and updated version.” Jones, according to Fleming, sees food
and hunger as the main themes of the opera, and consequently
he sets each act in a different kind of kitchen. Each stage
curtains is a place set for dinner, stained red (with blood
or forest berries?) before Act 3, cracked and broken after the
witch’s death. Jones is in touch with the murky side of this
work, which we see as soon as the curtain goes up. Hansel and
Gretel’s kitchen is tiny and bare, enclosed within a fraction
of the Met’s vast stage. There is very little furniture, the
cupboards are all empty, and the room is badly in need of redecoration;
from the outset Jones hammers home the desperate poverty of
this wretched household. The children seem desperately bored
in addition to their hunger. There are also subtle hints of
violence in the family: when mother arrives home the English
translation gives her some unusually harsh rebukes for her children
(“Damn you… you runts!”). When father finds out that mother
has sent the children into the forest he swings for her and
she cowers from him as if used to the treatment.
The two leads are successful in inhabiting
the persona of 10-year old children. Alice Coote is particularly
convincing as a young boy. There is something convincingly tomboyish
about her portrayal, from the way she carries her body through
to the details of her costume: she has one sock up and one scruffily
rolled down throughout the performance. Christine Schäfer is
also fine as the little girl. Her English diction isn’t as good,
though it improves through the evening. She isn’t as good an
actress as Coote, and there isn’t really enough contrast between
the voices: Schäfer could be sweeter as the more innocent of
the two, particularly in Act 2. One quickly accepts them both
as children, though, and the contrast is underlined when the
first adult enters. This mother is haggard: her circumstances
(and her naughty children) have taken their toll on her. Rosalind
Plowright looks the part admirably, and her voice finds a shrill,
shrewish tone to match. Her foul mouth and her roughness with
the children is quite shocking, as is the moment when she is
driven to taking pills when the children leave. Her action (an
overdose?) is averted at the sound of father’s voice. Alan Held’s
warm affectionate tone provides a welcome contrast to the female
voices and he blusters in cheerfully, his “Tra-la-la-las” ringing
out clearly before we see him. His description of the witch’s
house at the end of Act 1 is delightful, and induces mother
to vomit up her dinner in horror!
Act 1, then, is full of a gritty realism
we do not normally associate with this opera. With Act 2, though,
the fantastical elements kick in. Act 2’s forest is a huge,
bare kitchen decorated with leafy wallpaper and an antler chandelier.
Its only furniture is a very long dining table. Sinister men
dressed as trees line the walls and it is from their pockets
that Hansel picks the berries. The first part of the scene,
particularly the cuckoo sequence, is beautifully atmospheric.
As the children realise that they are lost Jones conveys their
terrified loneliness by having them sit at opposite ends of
the vast table. The trees turn on them and close in threateningly
as their panic sets in. Jones’s striking Sandman is a wizened
old man, creepy yet reassuring. Sasha Cooke’s voice is rather
shrill for the role, but she acts it well. The evening prayer
is taken slowly but sounds beautiful. Rather than having fourteen
angels for the dream sequence, the children dream of fourteen
chefs who, with aid of a fish-footman, lay out a sumptuous banquet
for them. It’s an appropriate and lovely way to end the act.
After the interval we see the same scene with the Dew Fairy,
a model American housewife from Good Housekeeping of
the 1950s. She does the washing up as she wakes the children.
The children are tempted into the witch’s
kitchen by a vast black forest gateau. The kitchen itself is
like a bunker: signs around the wall (in German) warn of the
dangers of explosion or asphyxiation. There is no doubt that
this is a prison, in spite of the gorgeous food we see everywhere.
Philip Langridge’s witch is a delight. Unrecognisable under
his make-up, he hurls himself into his role as a demented old
crone. There is nothing supernatural about this witch: instead
she comes across as a creepy but disturbingly normal old woman,
like a sinister granny complete with pearls. Her physical contact
with the children is unsettlingly close, however, almost suggesting
grooming. Langridge acts with brilliant mania, concocting his
malevolent brew out of all manner of goodies on his table and
dancing with real malevolent energy until his demise in the
oven. His voice, always recognisable, never spills into Sprechstimme,
however, and he never forgets that he is singing wonderful music.
The chorus of gingerbread children sing and act well, though
the Americanisation of their English is rather too obvious!
Jurowski directs the orchestra with precision
and flair. There is a burnished glow to the opening phrases
of the Overture, which is then followed by a bumptious swing
in the march. The interludes and pantomime are well paced and
the quality of the recorded sound is splendid throughout. The
camera direction is remarkable for a live performance: they
have cameras everywhere! As well as spotlighting individual
members of the orchestra during the overture they cover every
inch of the stage and move around with precision, yet without
drawing attention to themselves.
The extras are generous too: we get two
backstage interviews with the Met’s technical director who lets
us in on some of the secrets of getting such a complicated set
in place at the right time. There is also an interview with
Coote and Schäfer about their roles, and a short film about
John Macfarlane, the set and costume designer. These are all
informative and good fun and, sensibly, they are banded separately
as extras rather than embedded in the film as they would have
been during the relay. In addition, we see the principals being
made-up during the overture, and we see the stage-hands moving
the next set into place during the Witch’s Ride.
A dark, yet satisfying version of the story,
then. It won’t please traditionalists, who would be better off
with August Everding’s classic Vienna film with Gruberova and
Fassbaender, but the performances all sound great and the film
still conveys the excitement of a live event. Let’s hope Gelb
gives us many more.
Simon Thompson
