Hansel and Gretel
Dec. 11th, 2006 02:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ceebeegeeI went to see a small local production of the opera Hansel and Gretel last Friday. It was put on by a group called the Liederkranz, on the Upper East Side--the tickets were affordable ($20) so my expectations were different from those of the Met's Boheme.
First off, the singers were all kick-ass. No fault with their technique whatsoever--I will say, I wish they could've covered their voices a bit less. H&G is a children's opera first and foremost, and I feel it's very important to make that particular opera as accessible as possible. If the adults have a difficult time understanding what they're singing (it was in English, incidentally, although Hansel und Gretel is originally in German), I can't imagine what the children are hearing.
Also, the mezzo singing Hansel was simply not believable as a boy. The Gretel was *adorable,* all big eyes and little blonde braids but the Hansel was doing all that Mr. B-Natural shit--hands on hips, leaning "boyishly," doing the "aw shucks" fist gesture very exaggeratedly. Boys do not act like that and any real little boy watching that would not see himself, would not be drawn into that world. Why do so many women who play those travesti roles act like that? In the Frederica von Stade video of Hansel and Gretel she does the same stuff and it just looks so fake. Watch Cathy Rigby! She knew how to do it--she was not a terrific singer as Peter Pan but she was definitely believable as boy, all gruff and jerky and kind of athletic. Opera is so stylized that you're starting off with a lot of obstacles already--everybody is singing, a woman is playing a boy, there are angels and witches--the acting should be more grounded so the children have a way into that heightened reality.
The production values were odd. Disappointingly, there was only a piano, no orchestration at all. Hansel and Gretel does have a lot of sweet little melodies but the score is fairly rich--it has a Germanic feel with a hint of Wagner and I really wanted to hear something a little more in the second and third acts. The second act ends with a lovely number, the prayer, that begins "When at night I go to sleep/Fourteen angels watch do keep..." This just wasn't what it could've been, a showstopper, because there was no instrumentation. The second act, in the forest, was surprisingly good--they had actual trees in stage, 5-6 of them. In the third act, we see the witch's cottage for the first time--VERY disappointing. It was a plywood cottage with candy canes, lollipops, etc. painted on. For another $50-100 they could've gone out and bought some real lollipops and pasted them on and it would've looked so much better. Damn it, I want to see some real candy! That's always been a favorite fairy tale of mine precisely because the idea of a house made entirely out of candy sounds AWESOME.
Another odd thing was the witch--a baritone sang it. ODD. Usually that role is sung by a mezzo, and as good as the baritone was, seeing him cavort around in a dress made it a little too campy for me. (I have a feeling he got the role because of his resume--he was the only singer who had Met credits--in fact, he's a principal with the Met--and they probably would've given him Gretel if he'd wanted it!)
Now I want to see this at City Opera or the Met--I think the Met could make it really dark and moody and Germanic with that enormous stage.
First off, the singers were all kick-ass. No fault with their technique whatsoever--I will say, I wish they could've covered their voices a bit less. H&G is a children's opera first and foremost, and I feel it's very important to make that particular opera as accessible as possible. If the adults have a difficult time understanding what they're singing (it was in English, incidentally, although Hansel und Gretel is originally in German), I can't imagine what the children are hearing.
Also, the mezzo singing Hansel was simply not believable as a boy. The Gretel was *adorable,* all big eyes and little blonde braids but the Hansel was doing all that Mr. B-Natural shit--hands on hips, leaning "boyishly," doing the "aw shucks" fist gesture very exaggeratedly. Boys do not act like that and any real little boy watching that would not see himself, would not be drawn into that world. Why do so many women who play those travesti roles act like that? In the Frederica von Stade video of Hansel and Gretel she does the same stuff and it just looks so fake. Watch Cathy Rigby! She knew how to do it--she was not a terrific singer as Peter Pan but she was definitely believable as boy, all gruff and jerky and kind of athletic. Opera is so stylized that you're starting off with a lot of obstacles already--everybody is singing, a woman is playing a boy, there are angels and witches--the acting should be more grounded so the children have a way into that heightened reality.
The production values were odd. Disappointingly, there was only a piano, no orchestration at all. Hansel and Gretel does have a lot of sweet little melodies but the score is fairly rich--it has a Germanic feel with a hint of Wagner and I really wanted to hear something a little more in the second and third acts. The second act ends with a lovely number, the prayer, that begins "When at night I go to sleep/Fourteen angels watch do keep..." This just wasn't what it could've been, a showstopper, because there was no instrumentation. The second act, in the forest, was surprisingly good--they had actual trees in stage, 5-6 of them. In the third act, we see the witch's cottage for the first time--VERY disappointing. It was a plywood cottage with candy canes, lollipops, etc. painted on. For another $50-100 they could've gone out and bought some real lollipops and pasted them on and it would've looked so much better. Damn it, I want to see some real candy! That's always been a favorite fairy tale of mine precisely because the idea of a house made entirely out of candy sounds AWESOME.
Another odd thing was the witch--a baritone sang it. ODD. Usually that role is sung by a mezzo, and as good as the baritone was, seeing him cavort around in a dress made it a little too campy for me. (I have a feeling he got the role because of his resume--he was the only singer who had Met credits--in fact, he's a principal with the Met--and they probably would've given him Gretel if he'd wanted it!)
Now I want to see this at City Opera or the Met--I think the Met could make it really dark and moody and Germanic with that enormous stage.
