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In 1881, the twenty-seven-year-old Engelbert Humperdinck became Richard Wagner’s assistant in Bayreuth. Wagner had two more years to live. These two years of intense artistic collaboration on Parsifal indelibly marked the young composer’s life and style. In 1883, the Master died, leaving his disciple “incomplete”. He became a wanderer, traveling throughout Europe, eventually becoming a renowned teacher. Ten years later, in Weimar, Humperdinck completed his masterpiece, Hänsel and Gretel. His sister wrote the libretto, inspired by the Grimm brothers’ fairy tale. The opera premiered at Christmas under the enthusiastic baton of Richard Strauss. Humperdinck had retained a Wagnerian taste for continuous melody and leitmotiv. However, his fairy-tale opera (Märchenoper) also drew on children’s songs and the sort of popular melodies whose origins tend to become lost in the mists of time. The result is music that astounds, as deep as the lakes of Germanic legends but at the same time strangely familiar. It conjures up memories of our forgotten childhoods as though once, long ago we ourselves were that very brother and sister lost in the forest, trapped in the grasp of the witch with her ingerbread house.
Jochen Schmeckenbecher (Peter) ; Irmgard Vilsmaier (Gertrud) ; Daniela Sindram (Hänsel) ; Anne-Catherine Gillet (Gretel) ; Anja Silja (Die Knusperhexe) ; Paris Opera Orchestra, Maîtrise des Hauts-de-Seine / Paris Opera Children’s Chorus
Musical conductor : Claus Peter Flor | Stage director : Mariame Clément | Set and costumes : Julia Hansen | Lighting : Philippe Berthomé | Choreography : Mathieu Guilhaumon |
German
English, French
Production compagny : Bel Air Media
Coproduction compagny : Opéra de Paris Production, in association with France Télévisions and the support of the CNC
Running Time : 1x90'
Production Year : 2013
Distribution compagny : Telmondis Distribution
Video Format : HD CAM, Digibeta 16/9