Monday December 24, 2007 matinee - The premiere of the Met's new production of HANSEL & GRETEL played to a full house today. After attending the dress rehearsal on Friday I wasn't thrilled at the prospect of seeing it again but since the tickets were bought long ago, I trekked down to the sold-out Met for another viewing, with Dmitry as my box-mate. The composer, Englebert Humperdinck is shown at far left, and today's excellent conductor Vladimir Jurowski is near-left. Jurowski and the orchestra were a tremendously satisfying aspect of the performance today. The score is really beautiful and well-orchestrated with those Wagnerian touches that are so appealing. Jurowski made sure that the lighter-voiced singers in the cast were clearly audible. Concert-master David Chan spun out some shimmering violin solos.
A large dining room with leafy wallpaper replaces the forest in this production. I felt at the dress rehearsal that this was the production's biggest mistake, and felt even more strongly so today. The music calls for an outdoor setting: the murmurs of forest animals and the call of the cuckoo. The enchanting scene with the entry of the 14 chefs who serve an elaborate diner to Hansel and Gretel is the production's single moment of true magic. However, on awakening in Act II, the siblings discuss their dream of angels at length. No mention of the cooks or the feast!
Alice Coote and Chrstine Schaefer stuff themselves in the Witch's kitchen. They entered into the spirit of the production but neither of them has the youthful sound which is a key to the roles. Schaefer's voice is very light and her English is not clear. Coote is boyish and her voice is serviceable but not distinctive.
Masterpiece: Philip Langridge as the Witch. The tenor is transformed into an eccentric but dangerous old bag (make-up photos by Ozier Muhammed of the NY Times) This piece of inspired casting pays off tremendously with one of those brilliant characterizations that have cropped up at the Met from time to time over the years when voice, diction & sheer theatrical daring combine to bring a role grandly to life. Langridge has had a similar success at the Met in the utterly different role of Loge in RHEINGOLD. Today, his Witch was simply remarkable. Bravo!
Finale: Ding-Dong, the Witch is dead. Peter leads his rescued children and those released from the Witch's spell in a hymn of thanks. Alan Held & Rosalind Plowright were Peter and Gertrude. Held sang with resonant strength and apt dramatic accents; Plowright's wobble is off-putting but she created a movingly ambiguous character: harshly stern with the children but later more sympathetic in her own vulnerability which leads her to the brink of suicide by pills. Her husband's return home makes her spit them out.
Two of the Met's finest Young Artists, Lisette Oropesa and Sasha Cooke, took the solo roles of the Dew Fairy and the Sandman respectively. The last time the Met gave a new HANSEL, these roles were taken by Lillian Sukis and Karan Armstrong, both of whom went on to notable careers. We had a brief preview of Sasha's Sandman - and of her incredible costume - at the Lincoln Center Tree Lighting a couple of weeks ago. And Sasha gets an extra bon-bon in her Christmas stocking for her transformation into an old man. Both girls sang clearly and characterfully today and I'm looking forward to seeing them many times over the coming seasons at the Met.
Production photos by Ken Howard/Met Opera website: the chefs; Sasha Cooke as the Sandman; Lisette Oropesa as the Dew Fairy.
I pretty much concur. The production is disappointing, though the set for Act 2 didn't bother me as much as Philip. My main issue is that it seemed very poorly staged. The singers frequently seemed very awkward, most notably Plowright. She looked and moved like a drag queen (not a glamorous one). There was no voice there anymore. Schafer's top - the only part of the voice you can hear - was shrill and sour. Coote looks good as a boy, but the voice is anonymous. Nobody's English was comprehensible. The real winner was Philip Langridge. Act 3 is the only one that seems to have been fully staged - with all the (real) food being eaten and thrown around and mixed together. It's a great gross-out for kids, and Langridge owned that stage. I wish the oven could have been seen from house right, however. Apparently after the witch is pushed into the oven real flames spring up and she can be seen behind the door trying to get out. This was lost on about 50% of the audience. Alan Held, Sasha Cooke and Lisette Oropesa also sounded great. But with a weak Hansel and Gretel, and poor staging - you're in trouble.
Posted by: Dmitry | December 25, 2007 at 11:08 AM
Incidentally, that photo of Hansel and Gretel in the "Forest" room is a tad misleading. Those vivid greens on the wallpaper were not nearly that vivid in the house.
Posted by: Dmitry | December 25, 2007 at 11:10 AM
I do think the Met needs to be more careful about being sure that important aspects of its productions can be seen from all parts of the house. As Dmitry points out, the stove in HANSEL could not be seen by people on the right side of the house. Also in IPHIGENIE the sacrificial altar around which so much of the key action centers was invisible to a large number of people sitting on house right.
I'm sure designers don't want to show every scene with everything 'centered' but with the Met auditorium's horseshoe design problems are created when events are presented at the sides of the stage.
Where I sit I am prepared to miss parts of any production and most backdrops, but I think that major plot developments should be visible to everyone who has paid for a ticket.
Posted by: Philip | December 25, 2007 at 11:42 AM