Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel – an analysis and survey of recordings and DVDs
by Lee Denham
Introduction
It has never failed to amuse me that, with regards to opera, I appear not to like those which fail to finish with at least half a dozen dead bodies piled high on the stage at the end, then to be washed away by a river bursting its dams, or at least being flung off the ramparts of a castle, so Der Rosenkavalier, Falstaff and Die Meistersinger, whilst undoubtedly having their moments, all fail to excite me as much as their darker, immediate siblings. I am therefore always surprised at how enchanted I am by Hänsel und Gretel, that one-off miracle from the pen of Engelbert Humperdinck; okay, a couple of children do admittedly cook a witch who then explodes, but their ‘crime’ is one of self-defence so surely doesn’t count!
For this survey, then, brought to you as a MusicWeb International Christmas Special, I’ve been in Humperdinck Heaven over the past few months, listening to as many recordings and watching as many DVDs of this opera as I could get my hands on. It has been a lucky work, especially in the recording studio and I have shared my thoughts on them below. It is also an opera that has already enjoyed its own survey courtesy of MusicWeb International, by Ralph Moore (see here) and so it seems pertinent that my own should appear at the same time when a discussion has appeared on the Message Board examining why reviewers often disagree on the merits of certain recordings. Now, I have known Ralph for a long time and more often than not we do agree on the best recordings of particular works, but we listen to opera in different ways. Ralph is a self-confessed ‘canary fancier’ (his words) who can often tolerate an opera recording that features sublime singing but with bland conducting better than I can. On the other hand, I am perhaps influenced by my younger years when I worked at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, where I was often allowed to sneak in to the auditorium to watch the evening performances, albeit only at a vantage point from the side of the orchestra-pit. I am therefore fascinated by the interaction between stage and orchestra and so can enjoy an opera recording featuring average singing, but with revelatory conducting a little more than Ralph can. However, that does not mean that of our views one is more valid than the other’s and I’m afraid you will have to read on to the end of this article to discover if we actually agree on anything at all with regards to this particular opera.
So as always, in the spirit of Christmas, I offer my apologies now for any errors below and acknowledge them as my own. Similarly, the ordering of the reviews is somewhat random, as befitting selecting whichever present I fancied to open at any given moment from under the Christmas tree – and if I have offended anyone with my nominated favourites, or you think I have had too much mulled wine by slighting one of your own, then in the season of goodwill, I hope you will be forgiving.
Background
In late 1890, Engelbert Humperdinck’s sister Adelheid Wette approached her brother with the request to compose music for some Christmas songs she had written for her children, based on the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale Hänsel und Gretel. These modest sketches then grew over the following couple of years into a fully developed Märchenoper (fairy-tale opera), which received its first performance in Weimar on 23 December 1893 as a work of many perfectly balanced opposites: an opera using simple folk melodies, but cloaked within the heavy-duty orchestral garb of Wagner; a story about children, but sung by adults; a tale with dark and very sinister undertones, that has a happy ending. It is a delicate balance of perfectly weighted parts that opera producers need to treat carefully, if not to upset the magic of this well-crafted spell.
Synopsis:
Act 1
Hänsel and Gretel, the children of a poor broom-maker, are at home while their parents are out working. Hungry and bored, they accidentally break a milk jug meant for their supper. Their mother, frustrated, sends them into the forest to pick strawberries. Later, their father returns home, bringing food and warning of a witch who lives in the woods.
Acts 1 and 2 are linked by the Witch’s Ride, enabling them to be performed without a break.
Act 2
In the forest, Hänsel and Gretel gather strawberries but lose their way as darkness falls. They encounter mysterious spirits and, frightened, pray for protection. The Sandman puts them to sleep, and they are visited by 14 guardian angels in a dream (the Dream Pantomime).
Act 3
The Dew Fairy awakens the siblings, who discover the witch’s gingerbread house. The witch lures them inside, intending to fatten Hänsel and bake Gretel in her oven. However, the clever children outwit her, pushing her into the oven instead. The witch’s spells are broken, freeing children she had turned into gingerbread. Their parents arrive, and the family joyfully reunites.
There are some subtle differences between the fairy tale of the Grimm Brothers and the fairy-tale opera of Humperdinck. In the first instance, the Grimm Brother’s portrayal of the Mother (or, more pertinently, step-mother in later editions) is of a much more cruel individual and it is she who persuades the Father to abandon the children in the forest to starve, since their poverty is so acute. The children overhear this, which is why they then drop bread-crumbs on their journey so they can find their way back; they get lost when they discover the birds have eaten them all. Further on with the Grimms, after ‘defeating’ the Witch, the children discover treasure in her house which they return home with, thus solving the problem of the family’s poverty. Not only that, but their cruel mother/step-mother has abandoned their father in the interim, so all live happily ever after.
Cast
Hänsel: A young boy, usually a mezzo-soprano
Gretel: Hänsel’s sister, soprano
The Witch (Rosina Leckermaul): Often a mezzo-soprano, but in some more modern productions, a tenor
Father (Peter): A broom-maker, baritone
Mother (Gertrud): Their mother, mezzo-soprano
Sandman: The Sleep Fairy, soprano
Dewman: The Dew Fairy, soprano
Sometimes, the role of the Witch, Rosina Daintymouth/Strawberry Lips (the translation of Leckermaul is varied) is taken by a tenor, perhaps to introduce variety to the mainly feminine voices; occasionally, too, albeit in none of the productions in this survey, the role is played by the same singer as Gertrud, when the Witch becomes the children’s fantasy version of their mother, representing everything their mother isn’t. For practical reasons as much as anything else, the roles of The Sandman and Dew Fairy are also often taken by the same singer.
There has been some criticism of the work over the decades since it was first performed – usually, and rather sniffily, that it is second-rate Wagner. This is a little silly; Humperdinck was of course hugely influenced by Wagner, as were so many other composers too – for example, the same criticism was levelled at Debussy with his own opera, Pelléas et Mélisande, but I would argue that Humperdinck is as close to the sound-world of Richard Strauss as he was to Richard Wagner. Curiously too, the Dream Pantomime has come in for some criticism – ‘curiously’ since musically it is one of the high points of the whole opera, but dramatically it is a scene that is rather difficult to pull-off convincingly in the theatre. That said, the thirty-odd sets below, both on DVD and in audio-only sets (the full cast listings for which are listed at the end of the article), are testimony to its enduring popularity.
To read the survey of recordings of Hansel und Gretel, download the full document here as a pdf.
