CHAN 3143(2) yyipyip.inddipyip.indd 1 330/4/070/4/07 110:01:160:01:16 Engelbert Humperdinck (1854 –1921) Hansel and Gretel Märchenspiel (fairy-tale) in three acts Libretto by Adelheid Wette after a fairy-tale © Lebrecht Music & Arts Library Photo Music © Lebrecht by the Brothers Grimm, English translation by David Pountney Hansel Jennifer Larmore mezzo-soprano Gretel, his sister Rebecca Evans soprano Gertrude, their Mother Rosalind Plowright mezzo-soprano Peter, their Father Robert Hayward baritone The Witch Jane Henschel mezzo-soprano The Dew Fairy Sarah Tynan soprano The Sandman Diana Montague mezzo-soprano The Cuckoo Sarah Coppen New London Children’s Choir Ronald Corp chorus master Philharmonia Orchestra Gareth Hancock assistant conductor Sir Charles Mackerras Engelbert Humperdinck with Hansel and Gretel Caricature by Oscar Garvens 3 CCHANHAN 33143(2)143(2) BBook.inddook.indd 22-3-3 330/4/070/4/07 110:02:180:02:18 COMPACT DISC ONE Time Page Time Page 13 1 ‘Gretel, I think we’ve lost the way’ 4:18 [p. 87] Overture 7:39 [p. 76] Hansel, Gretel, voices 14 Act I ‘I am the little sandman’ 2:39 [p. 88] Sandman, Hansel, Gretel 2 ‘Goosey goosey gander, the mouse in the straw’ 2:57 [p. 76] 15 ‘Where each child lays down its head’ 3:24 [p. 89] 3 ‘Down with the dumps, out with the grumps’ 2:40 [p. 77] Gretel, Hansel 4 ‘Little brother dance with me’ 3:39 [p. 78] 16 Pantomime 5:01 [p. 89] Gretel, Hansel TT 58:49 5 ‘Hansel!’ 2:15 [p. 79] Mother, Gretel, Hansel COMPACT DISC TWO 6 ‘My jug all in bits’ 1:40 [p. 80] Mother Act III 7 ‘Ral-la-la-la, ral-la-la-la, light the fi re’ 6:27 [p. 81] 1 [Introduction] 2:43 [p. 90] 8 ‘But wait, say where are the children?’ 3:01 [p. 83] 2 ‘When dew drops on the daisy’ 1:40 [p. 90] 9 ‘But there’s one, a crone, who lives alone’ 2:35 [p. 84] Dew Fairy, Gretel Father, Mother 3 ‘I slept here? On a pine-tree bed!’ 5:22 [p. 90] 4 ‘Keep still! No sound!’ 4:11 [p. 91] 10 Prelude to Act II: The Witches’ Ride 4:17 [p. 85] Gretel, Hansel Act II 5 ‘Greedy little mousey, who’s nibbling at my housey?’ 2:00 [p. 92] 11 ‘A dwarf stood in the forest’ 2:53 [p. 85] Witch, Hansel, Gretel Gretel, Hansel 6 ‘Hansel, don’t be so greedy’ 5:11 [p. 93] 12 ‘Cuckoo, cuckoo’ 3:16 [p. 86] Gretel, Hansel, Witch Cuckoo, Hansel, Gretel 4 5 CCHANHAN 33143(2)143(2) BBook.inddook.indd 44-5-5 330/4/070/4/07 110:02:210:02:21 Time Page 7 ‘Stop! Hocus pocus, witch’s ground’ 1:17 [p. 95] Witch 8 ‘Now Gretel, you’re the sensible one’ 5:23 [p. 95] 2007 Bergman © Beth Witch, Gretel, Hansel 9 ‘So hopp hopp hopp, galopp lopp lopp’ 1:32 [p. 97] Witch 10 ‘Now wake up, it’s time to eat’ 3:51 [p. 97] Witch, Gretel, Hansel 11 ‘Hoorah! Now that the witch is dead’ 2:40 [p. 99] Gretel, Hansel 12 ‘The dead arise, but cannot see’ 4:05 [p. 99] Gingerbread Children, Gretel, Hansel, Father 13 ‘Father! Mother!’ 2:16 [p. 101] Gretel, Hansel, Mother, Father, Gingerbread Children TT 42:19 Jennifer Larmore as Hansel in the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Hansel and Gretel 6 7 CCHANHAN 33143(2)143(2) BBook.inddook.indd 66-7-7 330/4/070/4/07 110:02:220:02:22 On session: Sir Charles Mackerras On session: Jennifer Larmore and Rebecca Evans 8 9 CCHANHAN 33143(2)143(2) BBook.inddook.indd 88-9-9 330/4/070/4/07 110:02:230:02:23 Humperdinck’s musical version of Grimm’s scary fairy-tale has caught the imagination of generations – children and adults alike. So we were delighted to assemble a wizard cast under the baton of Sir Charles Mackerras to conjure up (in English!) all the magic and menace of this fabulous score. Spellbinding! Sir Peter Moores, CBE, DL June 2007 Sir Peter Moores with a portrait of Admiral Lord Nelson by Lemuel Francis Abbott, acquired for Compton Verney © Lyndon Parker 10 11 CCHANHAN 33143(2)143(2) BBook.inddook.indd 110-110-11 330/4/070/4/07 110:02:280:02:28 orally reproduced folk stories would, within that their mother/stepmother has in the Hansel, Gretel and Humperdinck a generation or two, lose their currency and meantime died. eventually disappear. The Brothers Grimm It doesn’t take much of a Freudian to pick It’s sometimes asked whether Hansel and Gretel are suitable for children – or even for adults. and their followers saved a good deal of this up on the unstated connection in this dark is really an opera for children or an opera for Humperdinck’s opera has a good deal of material from being lost forever. little tale between the mother/stepmother adults. The answer, of course, is that it’s for comedy in it, several comforting moments and Hansel and Gretel appeared in the very fi rst fi gure and the witch, especially given the both. Children will enjoy its straightforward an offi cially Happy Ending, but there has been edition of their tales. It is an even crueller demise of the former at roughly the same songs and singing games, its rampaging a hefty sprinkling of disturbing elements along story than the adaptation of it made by time as the latter. This psychological comic–grotesque witch with her monstrous the way. In fairy-tales, there usually is – Humperdinck’s sister, Adelheid Wette, which relationship is highlighted in performances eating habits, and its supernatural apparitions, especially in Grimm’s fairy tales. eventually became his most famous opera. of the opera in which the two roles are sung culminating in the Dream Pantomime sequence The German brothers Jacob Ludwig Hansel and Gretel’s father and mother (the by the same singer, though that was not which, in traditional productions, features (1785 – 1863) and Wilhelm Carl Grimm latter metamorphosed into the slightly less Humperdinck’s intention and is not followed fourteen angels who descend a staircase (1786 – 1859) were distinguished academics upsetting stepmother in the second and on this recording. Another performance to watch over the children asleep in the and, before the term was coined, folklorists. subsequent editions) are so poor that they tradition, especially common in Germany, nocturnal forest. But then the child in us They published important volumes on agree to ‘lose’ their children in the forest in is to have the role of the witch sung by a all will also enjoy these things. In addition, German grammar, vocabulary and usage, order to have enough food for themselves to tenor in drag. They’re both interesting ideas, adults will probably relish Humperdinck’s but their most famous work was the jointly eat. It is the mother who comes up with this though obviously mutually exclusive. That the rich orchestration and subtle harmony, his collected and edited Kinder- und Hausmärchen idea and persuades her reluctant spouse to go Wette/Humperdinck version not only allows consistently strong melodic invention and his of 1812, which has come down to modern along with it. Hansel’s cleverness saves him Gertrud to live but to rejoice in the reunion masterly counterpoint, and his amazing variety generations as the frequently reprinted Grimm’s and his sister on the fi rst attempt (he drops with her children gives their ending a warm- of mood and texture, veering from near- Fairy Tales. Before their time, only a small shiny pebbles along the path, enabling them heartedness that is as profound in its way as Wagnerian complexity to a Johann Strauss-like number of what we now know as fairy tales to return the same way), but on the second the grim Grimm version, and clearly more exuberance and danciness. But then children – had been published in any language, but the he uses breadcrumbs, and of course the birds likely to ensure stage popularity. even if they’ve never heard of Wagner or success of their version encouraged many other eat them. Thoroughly lost, they discover the Humperdinck’s opera belongs to a counterpoint – will at least unconsciously collections to be made throughout Europe, witch’s house and its owner, and despatch her sub-category of German opera called the register these pleasurably, too. It’s an opera for spawning a new and highly infl uential literary more or less as in the opera (though without Märchenoper, or in this instance Märchenspiel everybody. genre. They were timely, too, in that profound releasing any gingerbread children), then (literally ‘fairy-tale play’: as we shall see, A harder question to answer is whether this changes in European society during the somehow manage to fi nd their way home, Hansel and Gretel was not originally an particular fairy-tale, or fairy-tales in general, nineteenth century meant that many of these where they are undoubtedly relieved to fi nd opera at all). The tradition developed in the 12 13 CCHANHAN 33143(2)143(2) BBook.inddook.indd 112-132-13 330/4/070/4/07 110:02:310:02:31 wake of the revival of interest in the folk or Adelheid Wette’s original request to her The likeliest reason for its lack of wider Rheinberger and Lachner, and won a series of fairy-tale instigated by the Brothers Grimm, brother was merely for settings of songs for success is that its tone is so much darker than prizes.