HOUSTON GRAND OPERA PRESENTS Hansel & Gretel Music by Engelbert Humperdinck Libretto by Adelheid Wette English Version by Sir David Pountney 7:30 p.m. May 28, 2021 Available on demand through June 27, 2021 Hansel & Gretel “ Hansel and Gretel has a musical score that is, without hyperbole, one of the two or three most ravishingly beautiful in the history of music. One never tires of hearing it or performing it; I could happily conduct it every day.” —HGO Artistic and Music Director Patrick Summers Background Hansel and Gretel is an opera in the late German Romantic tradition, The Dew Fairy wakes up the children with sprinkles of dew. Hansel premiering in Weimar in December 1893. The composer is Engelbert and Gretel notice a gingerbread house surrounded by a fence of Humperdinck with a libretto by Adelheid Wette, his sister. She origi- gingerbread children. As they take bites of frosting and candy, the nally asked him to set to music some poems she had written based Witch freezes them with a magic wand. But the children manage to on the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale of the same name, but the poems escape and push the Witch into the oven. and songs were eventually turned into an opera. The gingerbread figures around them turn back into real kids as Peter and Gertrude arrive and embrace their children. They all see that the The Story Witch has been baked into gingerbread in her own oven. Hansel and Gretel, the children of a poor broom-maker, are sent into the forest to pick strawberries by their mother, Gertrude. Their father, Fun Fact Peter, comes home with a feast for the family. When he learns the children are in the forest, he worriedly tells Gertrude about the evil Because Hansel and Gretel premiered in Weimar shortly before Witch who lures children with sweets and bakes them into ginger- Christmas, it most often is performed around the holiday season, bread. They leave to find the children. which is an interesting bit of history considering that it tells the story, as Maestro Summers notes, of “a cannibalistic witch who is Hansel and Gretel play in the forest as they look for strawberries. outsmarted and killed by two children she is trying to cook.” They get hungry and eat them, and the sun begins to go down. As it gets darker, the scared children hear a chorus of echoes before the Sandman walks out of the forest. He puts them to sleep as they sing their evening prayers. Hansel & Gretel Cast Creative Team Gretel Raven McMillon, Conductor Patrick Summers, Brenda Harvey-Traylor Fellow † Margaret Alkek Williams Chair Hansel Sun-Ly Pierce, Director Lileana Blain-Cruz * Charlene and Chuck Nickson/ Visual Design and Original Art Hannah Wasileski * Tracy Maddox and John Serpe Fellow † Costume and Angel Montana Levi Blanco * Gertrude Lindsay Kate Brown, Puppet Designer Mr. and Mrs. James W. Crownover / Chorus Master Richard Bado, Lynn Gissel Fellow † Sarah and Ernest Butler Peter Blake Denson, Chorus Master Chair ‡ Drs. Elizabeth Grimm and Jack Roth/ Musical Preparation Peter Pasztor ‡, Alex Munger, Carolyn Levy/Gloria Portela and Dick Saúl and Ursula Balagura/ Evans Fellow † Trey Yates Fellow † Sandman / Dew Fairy Elena Villalón, Assistant Director Katrina Bachus Dian and Harlan Stai Fellow † Projected Titles Jeremy Johnson The Witch Richard Trey Smagur ‡ * Houston Grand Opera debut † Houston Grand Opera Studio artist † Houston Grand Opera Studio artist ‡ Former Houston Grand Opera Studio artist ‡ Former Houston Grand Opera Studio artist Credits Director of Photography Ben Doyle The entire staff of HGO contributed to the success of this production. For Producer Daniel James a full listing of the company’s staff, please visit HGO.org/about-us/people. Producer Dale Edwards Assistant Producer Ciara Ayala Performing artists, stage directors, and choreographers are represented Audio Producer Ryan Edwards by the American Guild of Musical Artists, the union for opera profes- Audio Producer Shannon Smith sionals in the United States. Lighting Designer Michael James Clark Stage Manager Annie Wheeler Designers and assistant designers are represented by United Scenic Assistant Stage Manager Meg Edwards Artists, IATSE, Local USA-829. Lead Post-Production Hannah Wasileski Lead Editor Paul Lieber Orchestral musicians are represented by the Houston Professional Lead Animator Gabriel Aronson Musicians Association, Local #65-699, American Federation of Musicians. Lead Compositor Elizabeth Mak Lead Illustrator Jayoung Yoon Stage crew personnel provided by IATSE, Local #51. Lead Assets Yi Zhao Properties Design Director Megan Wardrobe personnel provided by Theatrical Wardrobe Union, Local #896. Head of Costumes Norma Cortez Head of Wigs and Makeup Dotti Staker Grand Underwriter Video Production Produced in association with Austin Opera Underwriter Streaming Partner Michaela Greenan and Nicholas Greenan M. David Lowe and Nana Booker / Booker • Lowe Gallery Hansel & Gretel HGO CHORUS Richard Bado Chorus Master Sarah and Ernest Butler Chorus Master Chair Frankie Hickman Julie Hoeltzel Lindsay Lymer Kathy Manley Katherine McDaniel Kendall Reimer Hannah Roberts Kaitlyn Stavinoha CHILDREN Lydia Jane Barnett Shelby Brown Audrey “Alex” Cañas Sofia Esphahani Elizabeth Hsu Maria Lynnae Jesko Sophie Tang Hansel & Gretel HGO ORCHESTRA Anne Leek, Acting Principal Patrick Summers CLARINET Artistic and Music Director Sean Krissman*, Principal Margaret Alkek Williams Chair Eric Chi* VIOLIN BASSOON Denise Tarrant*, Concertmaster Amanda Swain*, Principal Chloe Kim*, Assistant Concertmaster Michael Allard*, Acting Principal Natalie Gaynor*, Principal, Second Violin Carrie Kauk†, Assistant Principal FRENCH HORN Second Violin Sarah Cranston†, Principal Hae-a Lee-Barnes* Kimberly Penrod Minson* Miriam Belyatsky* Spencer Park*, Acting Principal Anabel Detrick† Kevin McIntyre Rasa Kalesnykaite* Gavin Reed Chavdar Parashkevov*, Acting Assistant Principal Second Violin TRUMPET Mary Reed† Tetsuya Lawson*, Principal Erica Robinson* Randal Adams* Linda Sanders* Oleg Sulyga* TROMBONE Sylvia VerMeulen† Thomas Hulten†, Principal Melissa Williams† Mark Holley*, Acting Principal Mila Neal TUBA VIOLA Mark Barton†, Principal Eliseo Rene Salazar*, Principal Lorento Golofeev*, Acting Principal HARP Gayle Garcia-Shepard*, Acting Assistant Principal Joan Eidman*, Principal Erika Lawson† Suzanne LeFevre† TIMPANI Dawson White* Alison Chang*, Principal CELLO PERCUSSION Barrett Sills*, Principal Richard Brown*, Principal Erika Johnson*, Assistant Principal Christina Carroll Ariana Nelson† Wendy Smith-Butler† CUCKOO Steven Wiggs* Daniel James DOUBLE BASS ORCHESTRA PERSONNEL MANAGER Dennis Whittaker†, Principal Richard Brown* Erik Gronfor†, Assistant Principal Carla Clark, Acting Assistant Principal* Donald Howey, Acting Principal * = Core Member FLUTE † = Core Member on leave for this production Henry Williford*, Acting Principal Flute OBOE Elizabeth Priestly Siffert*, Principal Mayu Isom† Hansel & Gretel Who's Who SIR DAVID POUNTNEY He was recently named artistic director of the Aspen Music Festival’s (ENGLAND) opera program alongside Renée Fleming. During the 2019–20 ENGLISH TRANSLATION season at HGO, he conducted Saul and Aida. Other recent engage- ments included Dead Man Walking at the Israeli Opera. Sir David Pountney was born in Oxford and studied at St John’s College, Cambridge. LILEANA BLAIN-CRUZ In a career spanning over 45 years he has (UNITED STATES) been Director of Productions at Scottish Opera and English National DIRECTOR Opera, Intendant of the Bregenzer Festspiele, and Artistic Director of Welsh National Opera from 2011-2019. He has directed a number of Lileana Blain-Cruz is a director from New operas for HGO, including the world premiere of Bilby’s Doll (1976), York City and Miami. Recent projects include: the North American premiere of The Passenger (2014), and The Anatomy of a Suicide (Atlantic Theater Passenger at Lincoln Center Festival (2014). Pountney’s pioneering Company), Fefu and Her Friends (TFANA); Girls (Yale Repertory Theater); productions have won him Janáček and Martinů medals and Olivier Marys Seacole (LCT3, Obie Award); Faust (Opera Omaha); Fabulation, Awards, while his original librettos have been set to music by Sir Or the Reeducation of Undine (Signature Theatre); Thunderbodies and Peter Maxwell Davies and Elena Langer. He has translated librettos Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again (Soho Rep.); The House That Will Not into English from Russian, Czech, German, and Italian. Previously Stand and Red Speedo (New York Theatre Workshop); Water by the made a CBE, Pountney was knighted for services to opera in 2019. Spoonful (Mark Taper Forum/CTG); Pipeline (Lincoln Center); The Death He has also been decorated with civilian honors by Austria, Poland, of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World (Signature Theatre, and France. Recent engagements include serving as librettist for A Obie Award); Henry IV, Part One and Much Ado About Nothing (Oregon Feast in the Time of Plague (Grange Park Opera); director for Les Shakespeare Festival); The Bluest Eye (The Guthrie); War (LCT3/Lincoln vêpres siciliennes, The Cunning Little Vixen, War and Peace (WNO); Center Theater and Yale Rep.); Salome (JACK); Hollow Roots (The and a new production of The Ring (Lyric Opera of Chicago), which Under the Radar Festival at The Public Theater). Upcoming projects was canceled due to COVID-19. include: Dreaming Zenzile (St. Louis Rep) and The Listeners (Opera Norway). Blain-Cruz was named a 2018 United States Artists Fellow and PATRICK SUMMERS a 2020 Lincoln Center Emerging Artist. Currently