Royal Opera House
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| Images: Clive Barda /ROH (copyright 2018) Gertrud (Michaela Schuster), Hänsel (Hanna Hipp), Gretel (Jennifer Davis), Peter (James Rutherford) |
Gretel – Jennifer Davis
Hänsel – Hanna Hipp
Gertrud – Michaela Schuster
Peter – Eddie Wade
Sandman – Haegee Lee
Dew Fairy – Christina Gansch
Witch – Gerhard Siegel
Antony McDonald (director,
designs)
Lucy Carter (lighting)
Lucy Burge (movement)
Actors, Dancers
ROH Youth Opera Company
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Sebastian Weigle (conductor)
First the good news: the Royal
Opera’s new production of Hänsel und
Gretel was certainly well sung, if ultimately lacking the sheer
memorability of a great performance. Jennifer Davis and Hanna Hipp made for a
highly likeable sister and brother. From the front of the stalls, where I was
fortunate enough to be seated, their facial movements and other body language were
just as telling as their musical performances, diction as excellent as vocal
line. Lucy Burge’s skilled movement direction proved a definite boon, here and
elsewhere. Michaela Schuster’s Gertrud offered luxury casting, finely assumed, even
if it were wasted on a production which gave her little to do; Eddie Wade’s last-minute
substitution for an indisposed James Rutherford as her husband likewise did all
that might reasonably have been asked of it. If Gerhard Siegel’s Witch suffered
most of all from the production’s inadequacies, having a veteran Mime in the
role offered plenty of food for independent thought, especially when sung with
relish and precision. The smaller solo roles were both well taken and the singing
children from the ROH Youth Opera Company did themselves – doubtless their
friends and families too – proud.
The Orchestra of the Royal
Opera House played well too, if again some distance short of memorably. If only
these musicians had been conducted by someone with greater charisma than the decidedly
Kapellmeister-ish Sebastian Weigle.
He made a considerably better job of leading the performance than in Berlinlast year: less incoherent, but ultimately still thin flat, and featureless,
especially when compared to memories from just ten years ago of Colin Davis conducting this production’s predecessor here at Covent Garden. There
was little to move, little to thrill. Worst of all, whatever the time on the
clock, the performance dragged. This well-nigh perfectly proportioned Märchenspiel seemed at times as if it might
never end. Hardly the thing for ‘children of all ages’, as the tedious cliché
has it.
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| Sandman (Haegee Lee) |
The greatest disappointment,
however, was Antony McDonald’s vacuous production itself. Had this been a
remnant from several decades ago, kept on rather than replaced, one might have
smiled, or at least grimaced, indulgently. That it had been commissioned to
replace the thoughtful staging from Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier first conducted by Davis beggared belief –
especially when strongly rumoured that the mouthwatering prospect of a staging
of Humperdinck’s Königskinder had
been shelved in its favour. A late nineteenth-century, kitschy Alpine setting
was presented entirely without irony, Hänsel’s resemblance to Jeanette Krankie
seeming inadvertent rather than provocative. The story proceeded as it should,
through the forest, without interest and more or less without incident. The Sandman merely looked peculiar. For
some reason – presumably a bit of money was left over – various characters from
the Brothers Grimm wandered and danced around during the pantomime dream
sequence. In case you had not noticed, a large book was brought on with
the Grimms’ name on it. Then it was on to a weirdly Americanised house of horror,
with little sign of gingerbread at all. Subsequent action was messed about with
for no discernible reason, to the extent that it made little sense. The Witch,
who at one point seemed to have stepped out of a wisely undeveloped sketch for
a Carry On film, was pushed into a vat of chocolate (?) whilst the oven went
unused. The children’s choir’s appearance puzzled rather than fulfilled.
Kitsch to ineptitude: a Konzept of sorts, but only if it were knowing.
The sole glimpse I caught of the semblance of an idea, albeit quite
undeveloped, was the wolf following Red Riding Hood in the unsuccessful request
for a kiss from Prince Charming prior to Cinderella’s appearance. That was it. Doubtless
the third act signified an attempt to do something ‘different’, even vaguely ‘contemporary’
– in practice, about forty years old. Being different for the sake of it,
however, does not an idea make. Children, still more than adults, deserved much
better, as did the cast. A young audience is no excuse, quite the contrary, for
a third-rate staging.
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| Hänsel, Witch (Gerhard Siegel) |
If the evening dragged in the
theatre, it did all the more in retrospect, when to test my response – and for
the sheer joy of it – I played at home Karajan’s legendary EMI recording. Needless
to say, it flew by in no time at all. For audio alone, that fleet,
unsentimental, yet nevertheless lovely account remains a clear first choice. On
DVD, return to Covent Garden for Colin Davis and company in far more luxuriant
mode (musically, at least). The Royal Opera might not, alas, be able to bring
back Sir Colin. It should nevertheless seriously consider ditching this pointless,
enervating production for its intelligent, far from iconoclastic predecessor,
or indeed learning from the superlative production Liam Steel created in 2016 for the Royal College of Music. Then, please, that Königskinder…
