Humperdinck: Hansel & Gretel Opera Opera In English

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ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK

(1854-1921)

Hansel & Gretel

101:08

Märchenspiel (fairy tale) in three acts

Libretto by Adelheid Wette after a fairy-tale by the Brothers Grimm

English translation by David Pountney

DISC ONE

Overture

7:39

Act I

'Goosey goosey gander, the mouse in the straw'

2:57

'Down with the dumps, out with the grumps'

2:40

'Little brother dance with me'

3:39

Gretel, Hansel

'Hansel!'

2:15

Mother, Gretel, Hansel

'My jug all in bits'

1:40

Mother

'Ral-la-la-la, ral-la-la-la, light the fire'

6:27

'But wait, say where are the children?'

3:01

'But there's one, a crone, who lives alone'

2:35

Father, Mother

10.

Prelude to Act II: The Witches' Ride

4:17

Act II

11.

'A dwarf stood in the forest'

2:53

Gretel, Hansel

12.

'Cuckoo, cuckoo'

3:16

Cuckoo, Hansel, Gretel

13.

'Gretel, I think we've lost the way'

4:18

Hansel, Gretel, voices

14.

'I am the little sandman'

2:39

Sandman, Hansel, Gretel

15.

'Where each child lays down its head'

3:24

Gretel, Hansel

16.

Pantomime

5:01

58:49

DISC TWO

Act III

(Introduction)

2:43

'When dew drops on the daisy'

1:40

Dew Fairy, Gretel

'I slept here? On a pine-tree bed!'

5:22

'Keep still! No sound!'

4:11

Gretel, Hansel

'Greedy little mousey, who's nibbling at my housey?'

2:00

Witch, Hansel, Gretel

'Hansel, don't be so greedy'

5:11

Gretel, Hansel, Witch

'Stop, Hocus pocus, witch's ground'

1:17

Witch

'Now Gretel, you're the sensible one'

5:23

Witch, Gretel, Hansel

'So hopp hopp hopp, galopp lopp lopp'

1:32

Witch

10.

'Now wake up, it's time to eat'

3:51

Witch, Gretel, Hansel

11.

'Hoorach! Now that the witch is dead'

2:40

Gretel, Hansel

12.

'The dead arise, but cannot see'

4:05

Gingerbread Children, Gretel, Hansel, Father

13.

'Father! Mother!'

2:16

Gretel, Hansel, Mother, Father, Gingerbread Children

42:19

Solo: Rebecca Evans soprano - Gretel

Solo: Robert Hayward baritone - Peter

Solo: Jane Henschel mezzo-soprano - The Witch

Solo: Sarah Coppen The Cuckoo

Choral: New London Children's Choir

Orchestra: Philharmonia Orchestra

Conductor: Sir Charles Mackerras

22-27 November 2006

The Grimm Brothers would have loved it.

The New York Times on Jennifer Larmore in the Met’

Drawing on her long CV of menacing roles, Henschel’s witch was the complete package… only the hardened purists could have resisted her charms.

The Times

Reviews of the production
…It was Rebecca Evans’s Gretel, who took the honours. Spinning out radiant lines of delicious purity, she made it hard to see how the role could be sung better…

One of the best motivations for making this recording, as far as I’m concerned, is the chance it affords conductor Charles Mackerras to preserve yet another of his superb operatic interpretations. His seemingly effortless command of colour, texture and balance, always to dramatic purpose and in fruitful collaboration with his cast marks him as a true master of this challenging score, and the Philharmonia orchestra plays gorgeously for him. The dream pantomime, for instance, is truly hypnotic.

Opera News

Jennifer Larmore’s swaggering Hansel is perfectly matched with Rebecca Evan’s radiant and unusually voluptuous Gretel. Jane Henschel, as the gleeful witch, really sings the music in neo-Wagnerian style, without too much cracking and exaggeration. The parents are strongly cast – Rosalind plowright and Robert Hayward. The opera is a little miracle, and this new English version – David Pountney’s translation – deserves to attract new generations of admirers.

The Sunday Times

Handel and Gretel is one of the supreme achievements of 19th Century opera, and a work that benefits immeasurably from being sung in the language of its audience… The conducting of Charles Mackerras is a major plus. His unfolding of the overture, both spacious and theatrical, is a model , just as the rapturous orchestral pantomime that closes the first act is perfectly judged…. A thoroughly enjoyable performance.

The Guardian

It is more or less a foregone conclusion that a recording of Hansel and Gretel conducted by Charles Mackerras will be a triumph, and this latest in Chandos’ Opera in English series proves this to be the case. For a all its Wagnerian cribbing and mixture of folksong with pictorialism, Humperdink’s masterpiece is a work of particular musical economy, and it is this sense of continuity and dramatic shape that, however piecemeal it might have been recorded, marks Mackerras’s interpretation: the first two acts played as if in one grand sweep from playful opening to serene angelic close; Act 3 travelling from dreamy dawn to ‘hexicidal’ victory on disc two…. Jane Henschel puts in a star performance as the Witch, not over-playing the characterisation in her use of vocal tone-colour, as some do, yet obviously enjoying the way such lines as ‘My names Rosina Lickspittle’ go from sweetness and light to malevolence in the twinkling of a barline.

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