Engelbert Humperdinck’s “Hänsel and Gretel”

PROJECT Engelbert Humperdinck’s “Hänsel and Gretel”, s taged by Kirill Serebrennikov Opera Stuttgart, premiere: October 22, 2017.

In the c ontext of the current debate on values, we noticed in recent weeks, “Hänsel und Gretel” by Engelbert Humperdinck at the Stuttgart Opera, because the f airytale about hope and distress shows on several levels the necessity of an open discourse on values.

On the one hand, the Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov locates the plot of the more than 120 year-old production in Rwanda, exactly where he would project our present, consumed-guilt feeling; and counteracts the fate of two African children, who are searching for the happiness in the world of department stores after arriving in Stuttgart, within in the context of globaliza tion, thus, representing both material and immaterial values.

On the other hand, the contemporary production stimulates, above all, the debate on the social, cultural and especially political foundation of values. Even today, Kirill Serebrennikov sits for alleged embezzlement in Russian pre-trial detention and could not complete his story accordingly.

Since then, the Stuttgart Opera has been demonstrating unrestricted solidarity, campaigning for the Kremlin-critical director and showing him respect by leaving his “non-staging” untouched, and not merely in terpreting it through thirdparties, bu t instead allowing it to show to others how he had thrived at the time of the arrest. Stage productions that are used as catalysts for freedom of expression, and thus as anchor points of a debate on values, are not only immensely important in shaking up society, they are also the mo st culturally valuable projects in the field of spatial staging for us to think about.

PLACE

KEY DATA

Stuttgart Opera, Germany

PROJECT REALIZED IN 2017

PROGRAM Screenplay

RECOMMENDED BY Sabine Marinescu and Janina Poesch, PLOT

IMAGES

Thomas Aurin, Quimey Servetti