Humperdinck - Hansel and Gretel (Belfast, 2017)

Engelbert Humperdinck - Hansel and Gretel

Opera North, 2017

Christoph Altstaedt, Edward Dick, Katie Bray, Fflur Wyn, Susan Bullock, Stephen Gadd, Rachel J Mosley, Amy Freston

Grand Opera House, Belfast - 15th March 2017

One of the advantages of a fairy-tale is that it can operate on multiple levels, ideally with some measure of realism or a moral lying behind the magic fantasy of its telling. Opera is an artform that is particularly good at operating on multiple levels and Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel is one of the greatest examples of a fairy tale opera that strikes a near perfect balance in how it touches on all those important levels in its musical, storytelling and - most importantly - its magical qualities. It wasn't dubbed 'Wagner for Children' for nothing, but it would be a shame to over-emphasise either the Wagnerian or the children's magic fairy-tale elements of the work. Opera North's terrific production uses stage-craft to place the right kind of emphasis on the material, and the musical performance is quite impressive too.

It's perhaps more important to get that balance of tone right in Hansel and Gretel than in most other fairy tale operas, as there are some quite dark elements in it that relate to child abuse and child abduction. It's not the kind of fairy-tale however that you would think could bear a brutal reworking of those dark origins in the style of Martin Kušej's interpretation of Dvořák's Ruslaka, but Stefan Herheim's colourful deconstruction of the same work shows that it is possible to make the escapist fantasy work hand in hand with the less than pleasant reality in a way that enhances its meaning and message. Director Edward Dick and set designer Giles Cadle might not have the same kind of budget that Herheim might have at La Monnaie, but what they achieve with this Opera North production of Hansel and Gretel is no less imaginative and just as probing of the story's depths.

There's just a glimmer of suspicion however that two poor children living in a hovel with neglectful alcoholic parents probably wouldn't have a high-definition video camera to capture their play and games, but Hansel and Gretel running around with a hand-held camera is more of a device that allows the audience to see the world through a child's eyes. And my goodness do they ever go for it, the playful footage projected in real time to the back of the stage, a masterstroke that draws you into Hansel and Gretel's games and their imagination. The starving children are not going to be aware of the poverty of their situation or understand that their treatment amounts to abuse and neglect, their minds being more likely to transform it into something more relatable like a game. The brilliance of the stage craft allows us to share this, and that's real magic.

The two worlds, the imaginary play world of the children and the stark reality of the world of the adults, are brilliantly delineated in Humperdinck's score and in the libretto, with the music and the language notably harsher when their parents are speaking. The distinction is brought out to perfection in the translation, choosing the right words to make you wince a little without it being too offensive or brutal. Folk music performs the same function as the fairy tale - and it's no coincidence that Humperdinck's score like many fairy-tale operas (Rusalka, The Cunning Little Vixen) relies on folk music to similarly transform a harsher reality into something more endurable without denying the reality of the circumstances they arise from.

The transformative nature of the fairy tale is brought out superbly in many clever little touches, placing the magic firmly within the minds of the ones most capable of it - the children. Instead of running out into a dark fairy tale wood then, Hansel and Gretel create their own enchanted forest out their home using hairbrushes and twigs enlarged to extraordinary effect by the handheld camera and its harsh lighting. The horror of what lies in store for them isn't necessarily outside, it's there within the walls of their house and it can be confronted only with the power of their own instinct for survival and quick-wittedness.

Perfectly matching the tone of the approach, the most wonderful display of this magic occurs just before the interval in the guise of the dream of the Fourteen Angels. Rather than the traditional fairy tale imagery as the children fall under the spell of the Sandman, the director Edward Dick comes up with a wonderful little movie interlude that is a rather more down-to-earth childhood dream of a perfect day at the seaside. In this little dream-movie the children experience all the joy, protection and happiness that is missing from their lives; candyfloss and ice-cream, sun and sand, love and laughter, a kind grandmother to give them everything that they don't experience with their own parents. It's a joyous little moment that connects the reality with the magic of imagination and the ability of the children to endure and rise above their circumstances.

There is no less careful attention to detail in the second and usually more overtly fairy-tale half of the opera. The edible gingerbread house is again just a clever camera shot - a view of the inside of the fridge packed with cakes and sweets blown up in projection to cover the walls and ceiling. But not everything relies on the cleverness of the production design to make the content of the second half work as well as it does. It's the delightful performances and playful interaction of Katie Bray and Fflur Wyn's Hansel and Gretel with Susan Bullock's swaggering witch that manage to strike that fine balance between the reality of the horror of the abusive captivity and neglect and the means of surviving it. Opera North's production doesn't frighten the children, except maybe in a good way.

It's probably the final scene that takes the most liberty with the libretto and yet at the same time it most perfectly represents the intent or moral of the tale. The fairy-tale has become a story that the older Hansel and Gretel tell to their own children, and it's their own children - the children who come alive when the witch dies - who exist now because Hansel and Gretel have endured, grown and strengthened to overcome the adversity of their experiences. The fairy-tale story is not entirely escapism then, but it is also a means that they can communicate these important values to their own children. It's a terrific way to acknowledge that Wagnerian side of the importance of myth and storytelling as vital to the development of cultural ideals. Even Hansel and Gretel's parents are reformed characters here.

The brilliance of the production - clever and charming, an absolute delight in every way - is matched by the equally warm and sensitive musical account and outstanding singing performances. I was already aware of the beautiful brightness and lyricism of Fflur Wyn's singing and couldn't have been more delighted to see her cast as Gretel. She didn't disappoint giving a heartfelt, engaging and playful performance, as did Katie Bray's boisterous Hansel. Bray's response to the witches's command to 'show me your finger' got perhaps the loudest laugh of the night, but this was also a beautifully sung performance that was perfectly complementary in a way that truly demonstrated the Wagnerian sophistication of Humperdinck's musical composition.

Simply due to the apportioning of the roles and the way the two principal roles were sung, it's fair to say that a large measure of the success of the production rode on the performances of Katie Bray and Fflur Wyn, but there was much to enjoy in Susan Bullock's scene stealing Witch. Her Gertrud sounded a little over-stretched at first, but she really warmed to the Witch role in the second half, and utterly mesmerized/horrified the young children in the row in front of me. You really need a personality like that to carry this off, and Bullock was terrific. To have Stephen Gadd there as well as the Father is another bonus. As good as all these production and singing elements were, it was the musical performance under Christoph Altstaedt's direction that was really outstanding, capturing all the folk swing of the songs, the bright playfulness and the sinister darkness, but more importantly with a contemplative sensitivity that is essential to carry off the ending attempted in this production. Opera North have really outdone themselves here.

Links: Opera North

Mozart - Le nozze di Figaro

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Le nozze di Figaro

Glyndebourne, 2012

Robin Ticciati, Michael Grandage, Sally Matthews, Vito Priante, Andrun Iversen, Lydia Teuscher, Isabel Leonard, Ann Murray, Andrew Shore, Sarah Shafer, Colin Judson, Alan Oke, Nicholas Folwell, Ellie Laugharne, Katie Bray

Opus Arte - Blu-ray

Much like their recent production of Don Giovanni, Glyndebourne's 2012 production of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro updates the work to the 1960s, finding it to be a period that acts as a good modern equivalent for the changing social attitudes that are to be found in Mozart and Beaumarchais' time.  If it's not quite a perfect fit here, it works well enough for the purposes of Mozart's version of the work, which is less concerned with the social and political climate than the richness of human values that the work expresses.  What is rather more important in Le nozze di Figaro then is how its characters are brought to life, and it's clear from the superb casting here and the fine singing, that this is the principal strength of Glyndebourne's new production.

It's very easy to get complacent about yet another production of The Marriage of Figaro, but one can surely never come away from a performance of this remarkable work with anything but deep admiration and appreciation for the artistry of the work itself.  It's a masterfully constructed dramatic farce that nonetheless makes acute observations about human nature and interaction in relation to those important institutions of love and marriage.  Le nozze di Figaro also has fully fleshed-out characters of real depth of personality and Mozart's incomparable music that gives it another extra dimension, developing themes, connecting them, bringing a whole unity to the work with warmth and compassion.  I doubt that any other composer, past or present, could have achieved what Mozart does with Lorenzo Da Ponte's libretto and Beaumarchais' play.

One can never become complacent about the work itself then, but having been fortunate to have only seen first-rate performances of The Marriage of Figaro, it's easy to think that all the hard work has already been done by Mozart and Da Ponte.  Far from it.  More than anything else, this 2012 Glyndebourne production reminded me that not only are the singing performances vitally important (in what opera are they not?), but that it's a work that is exceptionally demanding not only on one or two principal roles, but that practically every single role has to be carefully considered for the impact and the interaction they have with the other characters.  Will Le nozze di Figaro work with a weak Susanna, Figaro, Almaviva or Countess?  What about those "secondary" characters like Cherubino, Marcellina, Bartolo, Don Basilio and Barbarina?  The work is undoubtedly strong enough to get along without luxury casting in the lesser roles, but imagine how it great it can be with it.

You only need listen to the music that Mozart has written for them to understand that all its roles are lovingly created and have an important part to play in the whole fabric of the work.  That's a lot of roles that it's not only important to get right, but they have to be right with each other.  That's the brilliance of Mozart, and it's one of his greatest advancements on the development of opera as an important dramatic artform.  It's not all about the arias - although even there The Marriage of Figaro has some of the greatest and most popular arias ever written - but the duets and the ensembles also contribute just as much to the work as a whole.  In that respect, Le nozze di Figaro is not only a complete work of undisputed genius, but some 230 years later it's still practically unsurpassed.

You can set the opera in just about any period then and get away with it, even with its references to 'droit de seigneur'.  There have always been sleazy bosses after all, and the 1960s is as good a setting then as any.  The period however is not taken advantage of to any great extent here other than for purposes of style.  In fact, other than showing an exaggerated lack of taste in the clothing styles with flowery wide-collar shirts and big hairdos, there's a curious separation between the characters and the setting which, on the whole, remains for no discernible reason in a country manor in Seville.  That's the original setting of course, but it has no specific 60s context.  If you had dressed the characters here in period costumes, the set - barring the appearance of a sports car during the overture - would have functioned just as well.

As you would expect from a Glyndebourne production however (and this is from the same team that put together the astonishing Billy Budd), the set design by Christopher Oram is impressive in its attention to detail.  The locations are recreated with remarkable realism in the Moorish designs of the architecture, the tiles and the brickwork, and in the the lighting that casts warm orange-brown tones.  The set rotates from one scene to the next fluidly, the lighting finding the perfect mood for each scene, the configurations of the rooms working to the requirements of the drama's comic situations.  The stage direction from Michael Grandage however seems a little detached and on the serious side, never allowing the figures room to abandon themselves to the glorious wealth of warm, funny and touching sentiments expressed in the work.

I think the same thing could be said about Robin Ticciati's conducting.  It's a perfectly good account of the work, but it never reacts to the sentiments or the staging in a way that would bring out its full potential.  Which is a little bit of a pity, because there's an exceptional singing cast here that is more than capable of getting to the heart of Mozart's delightful creations.  Vito Priante is a big-voiced Figaro with the capability of being almost soulful in his delivery, while Lydia Teuscher is a comparatively lovely and delicate Susanna, innocent more than feisty.  Sally Matthews gives us a wonderful melancholic Countess where everything that is essential comes through in the expression of her voice.  Andrun Iversen's Almaviva is more of a blustering buffoon than a sleazy predator, and his voice suits that kind of delivery as well as being well-suited to the Glyndebourne stage.

Proving that the secondary roles can raise this work to even greater heights, particularly when you have a strong Cherubino, Isabel Leonard knocked the socks off the Glyndebourne audience, and you can see why in her sparkling, bright performance with a voice of immense richness.  The character parts of Bartolo, Barberina and Don Basilio were all delightfully played as well, but I was particularly delighted to see Ann Murray still looking and sounding wonderful as Marcellina.  The video recording of the performance is excellent, the colour and the detail all rendered beautifully in the HD-image on the Blu-ray, with fine audio mixes.  There are a couple of short features showing the work put into the props and sets, and interviews with the cast that consider the qualities of Mozart's work itself.  The Opus Arte dual-layer Blu-ray is all-region compatible, with subtitles in English, French, German, Japanese and Korean.