Review: Edmonton Opera's Hansel and Gretel at Jubilee Auditorium
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It’s rare indeed in any version of the classic fairy-tale Hansel and Gretel that the appearance of the witch is something of an anti-climax.
But that’s what happened in Edmonton Opera’s new production of Humperdinck’s ever-popular opera, which opened on Saturday (Feb 2) at the Jubilee.
The highlight occurs in Act Two, where all that is best in this production comes together for a special kind of magic. Director Robert Herriot’s conception lives on the dark side, shivery-scary at times without being overtly frightening. Designer Camellia Koo has produced a shadowy shimmering birch-tree forest of a set, through which flitter the doves of the Grimms’ story, ghostly figures, and fireflies, all through Barry Steele’s inventive projections onto those trees.
Costume designer Deanna Finnman, having dressed everyone in grey for an opening that reminded me of the family home in Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (where all is ‘grey’), now has the children in bright colours as they dance and wander through those birch trees to pick berries.
Then they are then lost. Suddenly a narrow chasm opens up in the forest, and high up is Finnman’s staggering creation for the Sandman, played by Aiden Ferguson. If you ever wondered what the missing Ent wives in Lord of the Rings might have looked like, this is it. She ascends up from the forest floor, all root and branch. At her stick-like fingertips glow fireflies. The mysterious sleepy dust literally rolls down over the children. She is indeed the spirit of the forest, all to that wonderful music.
The angels (children of Cantillon Choirs) then appear, like white child cut-outs, with headbands of little lights. The resulting scenario is truly spellbinding.
This is but the climax of a conception that continuously works its wonders, such as those same angel-children becoming (happy) ghosts at the ending, disappearing like will-o-the-wisps into their elemental woods. It shows Hansel and Gretel doesn’t need to be tinsel and childish, and that the opera not only really responds to such a darker treatment, but that it can then still be a tale for both children and adults.
Alas, not everything is on this elevated level. Indeed, the passage with the witch simply doesn’t work in these surroundings. It starts consistently, with a foreboding projection of the witch’s face on the side of the gingerbread house. But then everyone involved seems to have stepped back from making her suitably dark.
The role is taken by tenor Robert Clarke, who seems uncertain whether to play it for gender bending humour (which might have worked in a different production) or as much like a woman as possible. Then he is taken out of the forest for the broomstick riding scene, played for laughs, full of over-obvious sexual inuendo.
This both destroyed any magic, and was completely inappropriate for an audience that would inevitably include younger children. One can only imagine what parents replied when asked what the shaking broomstick between the legs meant, and the heavy sigh that followed.
Someone, surely, should insist on some hasty restaging before the second performance on Tuesday.
Equally incongruous, equally inappropriate, and equally inconsistent for this production was the regular inclusion of swear words in the mother’s lines. David Pountey’s rather twee English translation was used, but why did someone think it necessary to change the Pountey, for example, from “What on earth d’you think you are doing?” to “What the Hell d’you think you are doing?”?
Was this to make it feel more ‘contemporary’? Or to appeal to 20-somethings? Fairytale (and writing for children) 101: Don’t use swear words.
Things were also not entirely happy on the musical side. Baritone Peter McGillivray, with his strong voice and character acting, was particularly effective as the father, and Marion Newman’s interactions with her husband were convincing. However, Andrea Hill as Hansel struggled a bit, however lively her acting later in the opera.
Her mezzo-soprano was bright and attractive in quiet moments, but was simply lost in the cavernous Jubilee, especially in sections where Humperdinck’s Wagnerian tendencies blossom out in the orchestra.
Lida Szkwarek as Gretel continued the favourable impression she made in her 2016 Edmonton Opera debut. She played the role very much as the older, more responsible sibling. Her soprano is still a voice with plenty of development to come, but vocally (in what is quite a long role) she held this production together, sounding as fresh at the end as she had at the beginning.
It was in the pit, though, that the real musical problems lay – indeed, there were audible moments when singers and orchestra were somewhat at odds with each other.
Peter Dala is a very careful conductor. One gets the sense that he is unwilling to take risks (and, to be fair, one also gets the sense that if he did, something interesting might come from it).
One of the results is that he often employs very slow tempi, as in the opening here – not for the first time under his baton one got the impression that singers were sometimes trying to speed him up.
A second result is that the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra – who have a tendency to do this with less dynamic conductors – played without much idiomatic feel. There was little contrast of dynamic, a lack of emotional phrasing, a sense that everything was becoming monochromatic. This also made it feel as if the tempi were slow even when they weren’t.
One longed for conductor and orchestra to let themselves go, especially in a score that has both such fanciful delight and such magisterial weight.
Nonetheless, go and take your children with you – the magic with the Sandman in the woods is alone worth the price of admission.
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