Hänsel und Gretel

With Hänsel und Gretel, Engelbert Humperdinck created the most successful fairy tale opera of all time. The famous fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, on which the opera is based, tells the sinister story of an impoverished woodcutter and his wife, who want to get rid of their children in the forest. However, Adelheid Wette, the composer’s sister, created a milder and extremely imaginative version of the story: walking through the depths of the forest, Hänsel und Gretel are accompanied by the sandman and the dew fairy, and fourteen angels guard them at night. The witch, Rosina Leckermaul, lures the children with her enticing gingerbread house. She wants to fatten Hänsel up and eat him. However, Gretel cunningly defends herself and succeeds in pushing the witch into the hot oven. In the end, Hänsel and Gretel not only find their parents again, but also liberate the children whom the witch had turned into gingerbread.

As a young man, Humperdinck assisted at rehearsals for Richard Wagner’s Parsifal, and while he was working on Hänsel und Gretel considered Wagner to be an unattainable role model. However, Humperdinck’s fairy tale opera is not only influenced by the late-Romantic musical style; many melodies and texts have their origins in the popular idiom, such as the well-known song “Ein Männlein steht im Walde” (A little man stands in the forest) or the lullaby “Abends will ich schlafen gehn” (In the evening I will go to sleep). Robert Carsen has staged this popular fairy tale for the entire family. At the première, Olga Kulchynska and Anna Stéphany can be heard as Hänsel and Gretel. The baritone Markus Brück, still fresh in the memory of Zurich audiences as Macbeth, will be singing the role of their father, and Marina Prudenskaya, who gave her magnificent Zurich début as Princess Eboli, can be heard both as their mother and the witch. Markus Poschner, who has directed the Bruckner Orchestra Linz since 2017, will be at the rostrum.

(Text by Opernhaus Zürich)