Engelbert Humperdinck MAREK JANOWSKI
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Wundsam • Steiner • Merbeth • Dohmen Elsner • Gerhards • Hutton Kinderchor der Staatsoper Unter den Linden Rundfunk- Sinfonieorchester Berlin MAREK JANOWSKI Engelbert Humperdinck Live recording Hänsel und Gretel 6 Marsch! Fort in den Wald! 2. 02 Märchenspiel in drei Bildern • Fairy tale play in three acts (Mutter) Music by Engelbert Humperdinck Dritte Szene • Scene Three Libretto by Adelheid Wette 7 Rallalala … heißa, Mutter, ich bin da! 2. 24 DISC 1 (Vater) 1 Vorspiel (Prelude) 8. 11 8 Hoho! Wer spek-spektakelt mir 4. 01 9 Doch halt, wo bleiben die Kinder? 1. 38 ERSTES BILD • ACT ONE 10 Wenn sie sich verirrten im Walde dort 1. 14 Erste Szene • Scene One 11 Eine Hex’, steinalt 2. 23 (Mutter, Vater) 2 Suse, liebe Suse, was raschelt im Stroh? 3. 08 3 So recht! Und willst du nun nicht mehr klagen 1. 58 12 Der Hexenritt (The Witches’ Ride) 3. 53 4 Brüderchen, komm, tanz mit mir 3. 29 (Gretel, Hänsel) ZWEITES BILD • ACT TWO Erste Szene • Scene One Zweite Szene • Scene Two 13 Ein Männlein steht im Walde 1. 38 5 Holla! … Himmel, die Mutter! 1. 38 (Mutter, Hänsel, Gretel) 14 Mein Erbelkörbchen ist voll bis oben! 4. 25 (Gretel, Hänsel) 15 Gretel, ich weiß den Weg nicht mehr! 3. 29 DRITTES BILD • ACT THREE (Hänsel, Gretel) Erste Szene • Scene One Zweite Szene • Scene Two 2 Der kleine Taumann heiß’ ich 1. 29 (Taumännchen) 16 Der kleine Sandmann bin ich 2. 48 (Sandmann, Hänsel, Gretel) 3 Wo bin ich? 4. 38 (Gretel, Hänsel) 17 Abends, will ich schlafen geh’n 3. 05 (Hänsel, Gretel) Zweite Szene • Scene Two Dritte Szene • Scene Three 4 Bleib steh’n! 0. 35 5 Wie duftet’s von dorten 3. 23 18 Traumpantomime (Dream Pantomime) 4. 51 (Gretel, Hänsel) Total playing time CD 1: 56. 24 Dritte Szene • Scene Three 6 Knusper, knusper Knäuschen 3. 10 DISC 2 7 Ich bin Rosina Leckermaul 3. 47 (Hexe, Hänsel, Gretel) 1 Vorspiel (Prelude) 2. 19 8 Halt! … Hokus pokus 1. 17 (Hexe) 9 Nun Gretel, sei vernünftig und nett! 4. 44 Katrin Wundsam, mezzo-soprano Christian Elsner, tenor (Hexe, Gretel, Hänsel) Hänsel Knusperhexe (Gingerbread Witch) 10 Hurr hopp hopp hopp 1. 21 Alexandra Steiner, soprano Annika Gerhards, soprano (Hexe) Gretel Sandmännchen (Little Sandman) 11 Auf, wach auf, mein Jüngelchen 3. 34 Ricarda Merbeth, soprano Alexandra Hutton, soprano (Hexe, Gretel, Hänsel) Mutter (Mother) Taumännchen (Little Dew Fairy) 12 Juchhei! Nun ist die Hexe tot 2. 29 Albert Dohmen, bass-baritone (Hänsel, Gretel) Vater (Father) Vierte Szene • Scene Four 13 Erlöst, befreit, für alle Zeit! 3. 47 (Kuchenkinder, Gretel, Hänsel, Vater) Letzte Szene • Final Scene 14 Vater! Mutter! 2. 05 Kinderchor der Staatsoper Unter den Linden (Hänsel, Gretel, Mutter, Vater, Kuchenkinder) Chorus master: Vinzenz Weissenburger Total playing time CD 2: 38. 48 Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin Conducted by Marek Janowski Thoughts on Humperdinck’s poetically childlike and powerfully Hansel and Gretel dramatic is absolutely enchanting. Engelbert Humperdinck’s first stagework Normally, one warns one’s children was destined to become his most vehemently against addiction of any successful – and at the same time, to kind. However, the sweetly intoxicating remain a one-hit wonder. poison of opera is a different matter altogether. This can not be administered The composer early enough, especially in these days of constant “bombardment” of music. Engelbert Humperdinck was born in And the perfect “gateway” drug Siegburg in the Rhineland in 1854, Are we not all for music theatre is, to be precise: and died in Neustrelitz in 1921. After Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and completing his music studies in Cologne Gretel. In fact, this fairy-tale opera is and Munich, he received a scholarship children at heart? an excellent choice for the first joint from the Mozart society, and also won operatic experience of parents with the Mendelssohn Prize: this entitled him children – precisely because it deals to a one-year sojourn in Italy, where he with a well-known plot that does not met Richard Wagner in Naples in 1880. demand any extensive explanation. This was a meeting with far-reaching A plot that basically reflects the age-old consequences: “The half-hour I spent conflict between good and evil, and talking to the Maestro about important (naturally) concludes with a happy affairs of art – in particular, about his ending, as is customary in a fairy own – encompassed, I believe, some tale: for music that is simultaneously of the most stimulating and uplifting English moments of my life.” From 1881 to “Ever since I joined Wagner in Bayreuth, four children’s songs, the nucleus for score for the “fairy-tale play in three 1882, Humperdinck acted as assistant my own productivity has come to a the later opera. The first performance scenes” was finally published in the to Wagner in Bayreuth during the sudden end. (...) The main thing now given within the family circle was a autumn of 1893. The curtain for the preparations for the première of Parsifal is that I find myself again, after having success. During the further course of première went up on December 23, on July 26, 1882. Wagner’s subsequent been lost for nine years.” the year 1890, the entire “clan” worked 1893 in a matinée performance in death in 1883 was a heavy blow for him. on adapting the work to become a Weimar (for the copyright reasons, by Subsequently, he accepted positions The creation Singspiel: for instance, Humperdinck’s the way, the opera did not yet include as, among other things, teacher of father was allotted the scene between the prelude). Richard Strauss, no less, composition in Barcelona and Frankfurt It was precisely during this phase of the parents, and Hermann Wette also was the conductor. This was followed am Main, as well as various jobs as creative paralysis that the idea for the contributed numerous verses. In this promptly by performances in Karlsruhe music critic, editor and arranger. composition of Hansel and Gretel came context, Humperdinck spoke quite and Munich, and within a year Hansel However, with the exception of Die to him. Wagner’s music-dramatic work ironically of the “family curse.” By and Gretel had been staged in almost Königskinder (= The King’s Children), had led to a serious crisis for German Christmas 1890, the short score had 50 German venues, before embarking, various other operatic projects he opera in general, and many of his already been completed. Humperdinck after Vienna, London and New York, undertook – which were also based on epigones were unable to break away made the decision, most likely for upon its international triumphal fairy-tales – did not bring about the from his aesthetic orbit. In the end, economic reasons, to write a through- procession, with performances given in desired success. Humperdinck’s name Humperdinck managed to overcome his composed opera, without dialogues more than 20 languages. The protracted will always be associated with Hansel musical muteness and compositional but with a large orchestra and with development of the work – which had and Gretel. silence thanks to the help of a woman roles for adult singers. A year later, by not been in the original planning – – his sister Adelheid Wette. In May Christmas 1891, the piano reduction from fairy-tale to Singspiel and finally The massive influence of Wagner’s 1890, Adelheid asked him to set to was completed. However, this was to opera demonstrates its extremely œuvre on Humperdinck, as mentioned music some children’s verse she had followed by a further intensive period heterogeneous evolutionary history, above, is demonstrated, to a certain written for a play based on the fairy- of revision and instrumentation that which is also reflected in both music degree, in a letter dating from 1890: tale Hansel and Gretel. This resulted in lasted for almost two years until the and text. The template Adelheid Wette borrowed a number and sensitive poetry. Critics have One could also describe Humperdinck’s of motifs from the template, while remarked upon the “loving immersion work as an attempt to escape the Evidently, Adelheid Wette chose her rejecting others, carefully keeping in in the soul of a child” contained in her overpowering shadow of Wagner. To be template with great deliberation. mind the feelings of her own children. texts. sure, by means of a composition that Instead of the authentic version of the She transformed the cold-hearted balances precisely in between childlike Brothers Grimm, which kept to the stepmother, who calculatingly The music – the shadow of simplicity and adult monumentality: exact wording of the traditional story, abandons her children in the woods into Wagner one in which the most simple melodic Wette based the work on the version a mother scarred by the battle of social inventions (either originating from of the fairy-tale published in Ludwig survival, who simply sends Hansel and Humperdinck-expert Julia Liebscher Humperdinck himself, but also including Bechstein’s Deutsches Märchenbuch Gretel into the forest to pick berries. described Hansel and Gretel as “a quotes from folk-songs) come across (= book of German fairy-tales) from The dramaturge Wiebke Hetmanek cheerful and folksy counterproposal leitmotiv techniques and symphonic 1845. In his adaptation of the fairy- drew the following conclusion: “Wette’s to Richard Wagner’s mythologically development techniques. It is precisely tales, Bechstein focused more on intervention changes the essence of the charged music-dramas.” Yes, the this mix of styles makes Hansel and an exaggeration (definitely with the narrative, as it quashes the parallels above-mentioned influence of Wagner. Gretel so fascinating to both children theatre in mind) of the basic plot, between the mother and the witch, of It is more or less ubiquitous, and even if and adults.