Part of the reason for the enormous, and continuing, popularity of Hansel and Gretel lies in its irresistible combination of the children’s naïve, folk-song-like music with the drama and power of a Wagnerian orchestra. The libretto by the composer’s sister considerably softens the hard edges and even terror that are found in the original fairy tale as told by the Brothers Grimm. But Humperdinck’s orchestra conveys a sense of darkness and mystery that saves the opera from being too cute.
“We’re taking a somewhat dark approach to the opera,” says Edward Berkeley, director of Aspen Opera Theater Center. “We’re setting it in post-Katrina New Orleans, so the world Hansel and Gretel are living in is a sort of uninhabitable world. The frustrations of the mother and father trying to survive, the struggle to survive for any of them, is beyond the pale.
“So when the kids escape by going into the forest — in our case more a marsh with Spanish moss — it’s finding the antebellum perfection of the witch’s house. At first it seems like the place where they’re going to be able to find comfort, but it turns out to be even worse than where they’ve been. So we’re playing into the darker side, using some of the Mardi Gras-ish imagery, some of the madness of a society that’s been wrecked by a natural disaster.”
But for all of the darkness and, at times, cruelty that run throughout the opera, for Berkeley the reunion between parents and children at the end is always a redemptive moment. “I’m always touched by the fact that at the end of the opera, the kids are brought back together with their parents, and the family unit is restored,” he says. “You go on a journey where the whole family structure is threatened, where the kids have a vision of their parents as mean and cruel, then it’s dispelled. I know the lesson that’s learned can sound a bit like ‘There’s no place like home,’ but the opera’s telling us that ultimately, the family unit is the one we have to learn to trust the most. It’s a return to core values.”
The Aspen Music Festival and School provides the Score to the Aspen Daily News.
