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The Independent (Free subscription) | 29/10/2008
What is Engelbert Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel about? Freudians have it typed as a rumination on primeval childhood fears – of separation from parents, of blindness, and of death. In the Grimm brothers' original version, the impoverished mother plots to kill her children by leaving them in the forest: Humperdinck kindly gives her an alter ego, with the Witch – whom the children eventually kill...
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The Telegraph (Free subscription) | 28/10/2008
FEW of my critical colleagues gave the thumbs-up to Laurent Pelly's production of Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel when it was unveiled at the Glyndebourne Festival in the summer, but audiences have adored it and so do I.
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Emerging Pictures Blogs (Free subscription) | 24/09/2008
Emerging Pictures is bringing the critically acclaimed production of Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel from the Glyndebourne Festival to the movie screens of The Peter Jay Sharp Theatre in New York. Directed by Laurent Pelly, the production is superbly executed both musically and directorially, as Pelly brings a more modern version of the traditional German [...]
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The Independent (Free subscription) | 27/07/2008
Twice sanitised by the Brothers Grimm, the bloody tale of Hänsel und Gretel was wrapped in musical tinsel by Wagner's lapdog, Engelbert Humperdinck. As delicately scored as a Mendelssohn symphony, and as sentimental as a fairytale's apple-cheeked granny in its treatment of children, the fin de siècle operatic confection that was hailed as a masterpiece by Richard Strauss before its 1893 premiere illustrates...
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The Independent (Free subscription) | 23/07/2008
In Laurent Pelly's new production of Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel, deforestation is already advanced: plastic bags hang from denuded trees, and the ground is strewn with the discarded waste of our overindulgent society.
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OpenMarket (Free subscription) | 22/07/2008
The Financial Times has terrific reviews of opera – witty, trenchant, and caustic when reviewing some of the avant-garde European productions. One such production is the Glyndebourne Festival Opera’s current Hänsel und Gretel, the opera by Engelbert Humperdinck based on the Brothers Grimm tale. The production, according to the FT, portrays ecological disaster caused by over-consumption. [...]
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The Stage (Free subscription) | 21/07/2008
Glyndebourne, Sussex: Maybe because it's a summer event and Hansel and Gretel a story familiar from the pantomime season, but Humperdinck's delightful opera has never previously been staged at Glyndebourne. Read the full review
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The Independent (Free subscription) | 10/07/2008
Productions of Engelbert Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel are like London buses: you vainly wait decades for one, then along come two at the same time, courtesy of Covent Garden in the autumn and Glyndebourne next week. This adaptation of a Grimm story may be part of the standard repertoire in German houses, but here it's consigned to that critical limbo: "for children". "But as with all good fairy...
