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ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK

HANSEL & GRETEL

CONTENTS

SYNOPSIS P.

THOUGHTS ON TONE PAINTING ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK P.

LIKE WALKING THROUGH NEW SNOW INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTIAN THIELEMANN P.

THROUGH A MAGIC DOOR INTO THE STORY INTERVIEW WITH ADRIAN NOBLE P.

A MAGICAL WORLD INTERVIEW WITH ANTHONY WARD

“A FIRST-RATE MASTERPIECE” WALTER DOBNER P.

SPEAKING OF GINGERBREAD PAULUS HOCHGATTERER P.

HÄNSEL UND GRETEL AT THE WIENER STAATSOPER ANDREAS LÁNG P.

HOCUS POCUS CHRISTA LUDWIG P.

IMPRINT

ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK

HANSEL & GRETEL FAIRY-TALE OPERA in three acts Text by ADELHEID WETTE

ORCHESTRA

STAGE ORCHESTRA

1 piccolo / 2 flutes 2 oboes / 1 cor anglais 2 clarinets / 1 bass clarinet 2 bassoons / 4 horns 2 trumpets / 3 trombones 1 bass tuba / percussion thunder machine / bells 1 harp / violin 1 / violin 2 viola / cello / double bass 1 cuckoo instrument

AUTOGRAPH

Municipal and University Library Frankfurt/Main WORLD PREMIÈRE 23 DECEMBER 1893 Court Theatre, Weimar PREMIÈRE IN VIENNA 18 DECEMBER 1894 Vienna Court Opera DURATION

2 H 15 MIN

INCL. 1 INTERMISSION

HÄNSEL UND GRETEL

SYNOPSIS OVERTURE London, Christmas circa 1890. A Victorian family gathers happily in the living room around the Christmas tree. The father surprises everyone with a mysterious, new device: a laterna magica, which projects all kinds of unfamiliar and wonderful pictures on the wall and also opens the door to a strange, fairytale world...

ACT 1 Instead of carrying out the chores assigned to them, tormented by hunger, the siblings Hänsel and Gretel pass the time in the wretched hut that is their home by singing and dancing. They eagerly await the evening and with it the return of their parents, because today there will finally be something to eat before they go to bed: the children hope that their Mother will make a rice pudding using the milk given to them by a neighbour. But when the Mother finally comes home, the mood changes abruptly. Furious that Hänsel and Gretel have spent their time playing together rather than making brooms and knitting stockings, she rushes over to the children to give them a beating. In doing so, she accidentally knocks the jug with the milk in it off the table. Hänsel’s snickering at her clumsiness, the jug fragments on the floor and the spilled milk cause the Mother to lose her temper, and she sends the children out into the nearby forest to pick strawberries. Left alone, she laments the poverty and hunger her family suffers and drops wearily off to sleep. Awakened by her cheery, somewhat drunken husband, who for once has been able to sell all his brooms and has bought a big supply of various groceries with the proceeds. But their joy is short-lived. Dismayed that his children have been sent out alone, the Father tells his wife about the man-eating Witch who lives in Ilsenstein, a particularly dark and notorious part of the forest. Filled with concern, the parents rush out of the hut to find Hänsel and Gretel before nightfall and bring them home.

Previous pages: SCENE

SYNOPSIS

ACT 2 While Hänsel picks strawberries, filling his basket to the brim, Gretel makes a wreath. Happy that this time they have done as their Mother asked, they become absorbed in all kinds of games and forget to go home on time. To make matters even worse, before they realize what they are doing, the two of them gradually eat all the strawberries they had collected. Horrified, they set out to look for more, but notice full of trepidation that they have got lost in the evening darkness of the forest. The good Sandman then appears and sprinkles sand in their eyes. Huddled together, Hänsel and Gretel go to sleep after saying their evening prayers. In a beautiful dream, fourteen angels hover around them, and they have a reassuring sense of death and new life.

ACT 3 The next morning, Hänsel and Gretel are awakened by the Dew Fairy and discover the Witch’s gingerbread house. When Hänsel breaks off a piece, the Witch’s voice is heard from within the house. However, since nothing more threatening happens, the children start to nibble at the house, until the Witch emerges. At first she seems to be friendly, but she soon reveals her true colours: she casts a spell on Hänsel and Gretel and locks Hänsel in a cage, where she plans to fatten him up. In exuberant anti cipation of eating the children, the Witch clambers onto her broomstick and for some time flies ecstatically through the air. After her ride, she tries to persuade Gretel to look into the oven. Her plan to push the unsuspecting girl into the oven and bake her into gingerbread does not succeed; warned by her brother, Gretel pretends to be stupid and asks the Witch to show her how to look into the oven. Impatiently, the Witch agrees to Gretel’s request and leans far into the oven. At that moment, Hänsel and Gretel push her in, and she perishes miserably. The witch has only just died when the many gingerbread men stand ing around the house turn into boys and girls. They all fell into the Witch’s trap and were turned into gingerbread in the oven: but now the spell is broken. Hänsel and Gretel are able to free the children from the final spell with the help of the magic wand. The grateful children dance joyously around their rescuers. A little later, Hänsel and Gretel’s parents find the happy group, having been searching for their children through the night. Grateful and filled with joy they sing together: “When our need is at its greatest, the Lord our God holds out his hand.”