putting it mildly
Tim Ashley in the Guardian Unlimited writes:
When Hansel and Gretel are out of the house, their parents (Thomas Allen and Elizabeth Connell) prepare to have sex on one of the children’s beds, and we recognise the potential for deeply inappropriate behaviour lurking behind this family’s facade.
And speaking of deeply inappropriate behaviour, is Anja Silja starring in “The Katia Ricciarelli Story?”
Shameful! Lilian Baylis would not have tolerated such tosh!!!
What’s with the reimagining of Hansel und Gretel these days? First that truly grotesque Met coproduction and now this? What is it about opera that prompts so many of it’s interpreters to take the delightful and turn it into the disgusting? (Not that I begrudge Peter and Gertrud the sex, mind you, I could use some myself.) These days it seems that a traditional production of anything would be the most shocking one of all.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1094243/Shock-Opera-BBC-Christmas-Day-fairytale-horror.html
See the above for more on the shock horror fest.
The extent of the sexual romp in ACT 1 was the homely Elizabeth Connell undoing the top button of her chunky home knitted cardigan.
Actually apart from the kids strung up in the Deep Freeze it was a bland production. Both pairs of kids Kirschlager and Damrau and Coote and Tilling are excellent.
Dcrazmo, tell me what’s delightful about a cannibal who devours children living in the depths of a forest, and a family so poor that in the original Grimm fairy story the (step)mother proposes leaving the kids in the woods to die so that there are only two mouths to feed? OK, so Humperdinck tones it down, but they are about to starve until Dad comes back with bags of goodies.
I’m sorry you didn’t like the ‘grotesque’ Met co-production. I’m as convinced of Jones’s genius as La Cieca is of Bieito’s (and I know Jones listens to the music a lot more than anti-music iconoclast Calixto).
As Sir Morosus hints, this isn’t a patch on that in terms of creating a world – it’s all over the shop. I have no problem with marital rights about to be exercised (abrutly terminated with ‘but where are the children?), but I do think that it’s a bit late to turn horrid with the Witch after all the picture-book prettiness that’s gone before. It doesn’t hang together.
And a few kids I’ve heard about loved that Jones show – at least there’s real magic when the Dream Pantomime angels become fourteen giant cooks serving up a feast for children dreaming – what else? – of food. The new Royal Opera production aims for that too, but messes it up.
But thank you, anyway,La Cieca, for taking the cue from Sir Morosus’s comment on the Daily Mail scandal and paying a passing nod to Life Beyond Metland.
Does anyone (Americans excepted) remember the old Pountney ENO production? Not particularly well sung (except for Felicity Palmer as Mother / Witch and Norman Bailey as Father) and set in 1950s suburban South London (Clapham Common seems too have been the Forest, with the Sandman as a drug pushing tramp etc… ) BUT – the dream pantomime brought tears to the eyes: the Sandman opened a door into the sky (literally) and the angels – the security figures from H & G’s childhood – came out. There was the postman, the milkman, the Salvation Army girl, the courting couple in the movies, the cinema usher… etc and at the first climax came Mother and Father on their wedding day – and at the big climax came Grandma with her walking stick. All in white with acres of stage smoke…
The production as a whole dealt with child abuse – the transformation of Felicity Palmer from Mother into perverted social worker / Witch was chilling – that pink tweed will haunt my nightmares!
Also Mark Elder conducted it very well indeed. Traditional by no means – but as a production for a London audience in the early 80s, quite something.
Yes – that’s the other production I love best alongside Jones’s (a film was made for TV which they ought to release on DVD, to add to the fast-growing number). The children popping up out of the ground a la Stanley Spencer at the end were also very affecting. Pauline Tinsley sang Mother/Witch in one run, though it was a real treat to hear Norman Bailey as Peter.
Pelly’s Glyndebourne show was good in parts – especially the scary hermaphrodite-witch and her supermarket house. It managed to say a few serious things with more lightness of touch than any of the others, though some found it superficial.
Felicity Palmer did some extraordinary things with the broomstick in her Witch’s Ride Kundry like transformation from Mum to Witch. How did the Dail Mail miss that.
And those crocodile skin shoes with matching handbag,
A moment of madness on Clapham Common, although we would have to explain that allusion to our American Cousins.
and at the first climax came Mother and Father on their wedding day
Just so long as Elizabeth Connell was not involved!
Regie Goodfornaught: Well…duh. The opera’s a piece based on what Bettelheim called an “experience in moral education.” OK, I get it. But it’s also a supremely beautiful work of Art — one very dear to my heart — and I object when directors stress the tawdry at the expense of the transcendant. I’m sorry, but, force feeding a child by stuffing a tube down its throat is grotesque, as is waving a severed hand in another’s face. Turning the witch’s gingerbread house into a torture chamber may be au courant, and resonate with an audience that sees dead children on their television sets every day, but it doesn’t add anything new to our understanding of the opera. It’s shock for the sake of shock, and I think it would completely horrify and disturb Humperdinck. Remember him? He’s only the composer, I know, and therefore his original intent should be of no interest to anyone…Wow, I most be more of an old-fashioned, traditionalist fart than I thought!
A moment of madness on Clapham Common
Are You Being Served Quote:
Mrs. Slocombe: Some of us don’t forget, you know! I remember being thrown flat on me back on Clapham Common. And it was the German air force’s fault!
Mr. Lucas: All the other times it was the American air force’s fault.