Part chocolate factory, part psycho house of horrors, the witch’s hiding place at the Royal Opera House Hansel and Gretel He exudes a chilling charm. The front steps may be made of ganache, but blood drips from a window. Humperdinck’s fairytale opera is thought to be the first step into children’s favorite opera. ROH’s revival of this 2018 staging by director-designer Antony McDonald will run throughout the school holidays. In the tradition of European fairy tales, the central themes are dark: poverty, drunkenness, child abuse. The 1893 version, with a libretto based on the Brothers Grimm by Humperdinck’s sister Adelheid Wette, softens the horror with the addition of angels, the gentle Sandman, and the gentle Dew Fairy, creating a gentler, God-loving romance.
These polarizations create a dilemma for every director. Some ramp up the macabre and sinister elements that are more entertaining for adults, but see the work topple under the weight of expectation. McDonald stayed true to the spirit of the original with painterly designs that came straight from a pop-up book. In a remote log cabin, Hansel and Gretel (Anna Stéphany and Anna Devin) argue with their helpless mother (Susan Bickley), whose ultimate punishment is forcing them to pick strawberries. Lost kids encounter familiar Disney characters and cute furry monsters in the woods. The Witch (Rosie Aldridge), who does not appear until Act 3, meets her end in a vat of chocolate rather than a roaring oven.
La Nativité du Seigneur raced, roared and whispered across the great expanses of St John’s Smith Square
The work’s enduring power lies in Humperdinck’s score, successfully performed by the ROH orchestra under the masterful conductor Mark Wigglesworth. Sparkling with woodwind chorales, floating climaxes and delicate instrumental solos, this work has the character of carefree Wagner. (Humperdinck was under the spell of the composer he assisted at Bayreuth. parsifal.) There is directness and surprise in the staging, sung in serviceable English, with a characterful cast. So is it too boring or slow for a modern child? I took in the view of my cool 10-year-old friend, Matthew. This was his first opera, a birthday treat. She loved every moment, especially the children dancing on the table and the witch’s cauldron collapsing at the end. Let Mattie be your guide.
At Wigmore Hall, director-violinist Adrian Butterfield took his lead. London Handel Actors In JS Bach’s Advent and Christmas works written from 1715 to the 1740s. Five superb singers (sopranos Hilary Cronin and Jessica Cale, countertenor Hugh Cut, tenor Charles Daniels, and bass Jerome Knox) transitioned seamlessly between solos, duets, and assertive choruses. This first half of the program was rich in itself, from the mournful Süsser Trost, mein Jesus kommt, BWV 151, a lullaby-like plea for comfort with flute obbligato (Rachel Brown), to the euphoric Gloria in excelsis Deo, BWV 191.
Next came the Magnificat in D, BWV 243, complete with four interpolations for Christmas Day (Butterfield combined elements of two versions written by Bach; the work has a complex background). It is impossible to imagine what the congregation in Leipzig must have felt when they first heard this masterful song of praise. Explosive from the start, full of word tables, filled with cryptograms, codes and harmonic symmetry, racing from low to high, top to bottom, the entire work is a sum of joy. It’s breathtaking, as in the soft alto-tenor duet sung beautifully by the young, exuberant Cut and the experienced, rock-like Daniels. Violins, violas and flutes wove a gently undulating web around them. It all ends in a triumph of trumpets and drums, with singers and players projecting for their dear lives, with joy spreading through the cheering audience.
The baroque church in St John’s Smith Square (1728) was built precisely at the time when Bach was writing his weekly cantatas in Leipzig. The Christmas Oratorio is the annual high point of the SJSS festive season, but another powerful work, inspired in part by Bach and Indian ragas, hurtled, roared and whispered through its grand venues last week. Messiaen La Nativite du seigneur (1936), one of the great organ plays of the 20th century, performed here by Roger Sayer, consists of nine meditations on the nativity. According to the composer, in one section, shepherds’ pipes are heard under a starlit canopy of blue-violet, red, gold and silver. The religious, symbolic and compositional principles of the work, as well as the stained glass color scheme, cannot be summarized. I will stick to Messiaen’s own view: enormous technical complexities allow “the heart to overflow freely”. It happened here.
Star ratings (out of five)
Hansel and Gretel ★★★★
London Handel Actors ★★★★★
La Nativite du Seigneur ★★★★