There's two ways to present a fairy tale: the saccharine way and the Roald Dahl way. The saccharine way involves bowdlerizing the story, removing any content that a prudish adult might find objectionable, and adapting it for the zeitgeist.
The Roald Dahl way--well, I shouldn't call it that. Roald Dahl was not the first to write gruesome stories for children, and he wasn't the last, either. But it's a useful name to call it: when I say 'Roald Dahl', it conjures up images of horror, and children in dangerous situations, right? (If you don't recognize the name, please read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Witches, Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, and The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar.)
For many, many years, Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel was subjected to the saccharine stagings: it was an excuse to put a giant gingerbread house on stage, put a mezzo in a pair of lederhosen, and recycle the local ballet company's props from The Nutcracker. But more recently, it's getting reimagined, and the Richard Jones production of the work currently being shown in Portland, previously seen in New York, at the Welsh National Opera, and other companies, is already the most famous reimagining.
Jones presents this opera as being about that most primal drive: for food. Hansel and Gretel's family is starving, and there are references in the text throughout to their hunger complaints, their desire to eat, and so on. Perhaps the point is laid on a bit thick (as the overture plays, a drop featuring a picture of an empty plate is spotlit), but it's certainly a valid point for the director to make.
The first act is set in a tiny, barren, but modern house, using only a fraction of the proscenium--most of it is curtained off. While Hansel (Sandra Piques Eddy) and Gretel's (Maureen McKay) hijinks are not all that different from a conventional production, the mother's (Elizabeth Byrne) anger at the children is all the most disturbing from being similar to public scenes that most of us have seen of parents on the edge disciplining their children in public. When the father (Weston Hurt) returns his drunkenness (and fit of anger where he threatens to hit his wife) are also disturbingly modern and all of a piece of our time.
The second act is set in a barren room: the only trees to be seen are a handful of supers dressed up as trees. There is also a long dining room table in the middle of the set. The Sandman (Daryl Freedman) is a creepy puppet manipulated by its singer, and when the siblings sing their famous prayer, rather than a vision of angels, they receive a vision of fourteen chefs presenting a gala dinner to the two poor children.
The witch's den in the final act is the creepiest set of all: an industrial kitchen, it looks similar to what you might imagine a serial killer's den to be like--that is, after all, what this opera's witch (Allan Glassman) is. Ultimately, the cake that the witch is baked into is eaten by all and sundry--I rather doubt that cannibalism is the usual end of this opera.
It's a very clever, very interesting production, and it really works in making the story a little scary again.
The Gretel of this production is as unconventional as the production itself: Miss McKay's portrayal is that of a massive tomboy, unlike the goody two-shoes portrayal the character is sometimes saddled with. Miss Eddy's Hansel is almost surprisingly boyish--at the end, it's surprising how easily she fits in with the boys of the children's chorus. Both sang well.
Miss Byrne, a soprano with serious Wagner experience was very musical, accurate, and dramatic as the mother. Mr. Hurt's drunkenness was realistic without any of the vaudevillian about it.
Stealing the show was Mr. Glassman as the witch, who was got up like a cross between Julia Child and Ignatius J. Reilly. Though I think casting a tenor in the role is a little gimmicky, and I believe a mezzo can bring a sense of urgency to the witch's music that a tenor can't, I certainly can't say anything against Mr. Glassman's performance.
In their cameo roles, Miss Freedman was scary as the Sandman, while Jennifer Forni seemed to be channeling the recently-deceased Barbara Billingsley as a Dew Fairy looking like a 50's TV sitcome housewife.
The production, originally by Richard Jones was staged locally by Benjamin Davis, using John Macfarlane's designs. Conductor Ari Pelto played up the Wagnerian music in the work, but did not drown out the singers.
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