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Bruderchen, komm, tanz mit mir
I scored a ticket to Hansel and Gretel at the Met last night at the last minute, courtesy of Elizabeth. I was exhausted yesterday and actually in a rotten mood, and had been planning just to go home and veg, but then she called me up. I didn't *really* want to go because I was so tired but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to see one of my favorite operas at the Met. SO glad I went--I loved it. LOVED. IT. It was the most whacked-out version of H&G I've ever seen--CRAZY sets and costumes, kind of Freud-meets-Maurice Sendak by way of German Impressionism. Each act takes place in the kitchen, but each time the kitchen has been radically reimagined. The first act (when H&G are running around their house, trying to occupy themselves and pretend they're not hungry, waiting for their parents to return) was in a dingy, colorless, '50s-era kitchen. Then between Acts 1 & 2, a scrim comes down with a rich red background and a messy mouth painted on it. With teeth.
The audience contemplates this disturbing image then the curtain rises--it's the kitchen again, only much darker and deeper, the kitchen-as-night-forest. It seems to go way back, and there's a chandelier of antlers,
and strange men with branches for heads, like this:
This is my favorite act--it starts off with Gretel singing about the little man in the forest ("Ein Mannlein steht im Walde" which I've adapted to Tatiana--"Tell me, who can that cat be?/Sitting there fewociously?") and also has the cuckoo sequence (a beautiful, haunting, spooky-ass sequence--so Germanic it makes your teeth hurt), the Sandman's song, and the beautiful prayer that closes the Act ("When at night I go to sleep/14 angels watch do keep"). In this version as the children fall asleep, instead of 14 winged seraphim gradually filling the stage, you see these creatures enter way upstage...they get closer and you realize they're chefs, these lumbering, rubbery-faced chefs who start setting the table (very slooooowly) with scrumptious dishes. They're ridiculous, SO funny.
Act III takes place at the Witch's house--this was rendered as an industrial kitchen. I was a little disappointed there was no actual house made out of gingerbread and marzipan--instead there was a cake emerging from the Freudian-scrim-mouth. The scrim rose and that's when the industrial kitchen was revealed:
The Witch is often performed by a tenor in drag, as it was here. S/he was HILARIOUS. Absolutely hysterical; I can't praise the tenor's performance enough. Kind of this dottery, flaky, evil Julia Child, puttering around the kitchen muttering amiably and smiling as she's planning to eat Hansel. SO funny. In general the performances were great; I was especially impressed with Hansel and Gretel, they did some great acting work and weren't precious at all but very real. Really the only weak one was the Mother who was a little too overwrought, throwing her limbs all over the place.
As much as I loved this version, as I said to Elizabeth's co-workers during intermission "If I were a child, I'm not sure I would understand exactly what's happening. In fact if I were an adult and didn't already know the story, I might not understand." It is supposed to be more accessible than this; it's a children's opera. But what the hell, it was great.
The audience contemplates this disturbing image then the curtain rises--it's the kitchen again, only much darker and deeper, the kitchen-as-night-forest. It seems to go way back, and there's a chandelier of antlers,
and strange men with branches for heads, like this:
This is my favorite act--it starts off with Gretel singing about the little man in the forest ("Ein Mannlein steht im Walde" which I've adapted to Tatiana--"Tell me, who can that cat be?/Sitting there fewociously?") and also has the cuckoo sequence (a beautiful, haunting, spooky-ass sequence--so Germanic it makes your teeth hurt), the Sandman's song, and the beautiful prayer that closes the Act ("When at night I go to sleep/14 angels watch do keep"). In this version as the children fall asleep, instead of 14 winged seraphim gradually filling the stage, you see these creatures enter way upstage...they get closer and you realize they're chefs, these lumbering, rubbery-faced chefs who start setting the table (very slooooowly) with scrumptious dishes. They're ridiculous, SO funny.
Act III takes place at the Witch's house--this was rendered as an industrial kitchen. I was a little disappointed there was no actual house made out of gingerbread and marzipan--instead there was a cake emerging from the Freudian-scrim-mouth. The scrim rose and that's when the industrial kitchen was revealed:
The Witch is often performed by a tenor in drag, as it was here. S/he was HILARIOUS. Absolutely hysterical; I can't praise the tenor's performance enough. Kind of this dottery, flaky, evil Julia Child, puttering around the kitchen muttering amiably and smiling as she's planning to eat Hansel. SO funny. In general the performances were great; I was especially impressed with Hansel and Gretel, they did some great acting work and weren't precious at all but very real. Really the only weak one was the Mother who was a little too overwrought, throwing her limbs all over the place.
As much as I loved this version, as I said to Elizabeth's co-workers during intermission "If I were a child, I'm not sure I would understand exactly what's happening. In fact if I were an adult and didn't already know the story, I might not understand." It is supposed to be more accessible than this; it's a children's opera. But what the hell, it was great.
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The pics are WONDERFUL! Thanks for puttin' 'em up. The one of the big red mouth is CREEPY!
I saw Abduction from the Seraglio (possibly not misspelled) MOONS ago at the IU school of music in English. It was a hoot. And I LOVE the C in the ABCs, Carmen. I wish I knew opera better but sometimes I feel like my brain's so full of theatrical and musical art that I can't fit in ONE more E flat.
But I will say this: "I LOVE Trouble in Tahiti!!! The little opera by Bernstein. If I was a bit younger and more dashing....how I woulda LOVED singing THAT!" (end quote)
PS YAY!! I'm writing on your LJ!
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I know, right?! The whole audience was just kind of studying this...thing on the scrim during the entr'acte between Acts 1 & 2 (the opening, the tongue and the cake don't appear until Act III). And I KNOW I used to have a horror book with that mouth on the cover. My favorites were the Chef Angels, though.
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:)
Did you get anyone else to take that extra ticket?
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