Tickets are now on sale for Mid Wales Opera’s Spring tour, and what better gift than a night at the opera?
MWO return to main stage touring in March with their first ever production of Humperdinck’s late nineteenth century classic Hansel and Gretel.
Based on the Brothers Grimm’s fairytale, two children are banished to the enchanted woods by their hungry, frustrated mother. When their father returns and learns of their whereabouts, he reveals to their mother the true terrors of the gingerbread Witch, and the two of them hurry out to find them.
Meanwhile, out in the woods, the two children get lost before wandering into the clutches of the Witch who is determined to fatten them up and turn them into gingerbread. At the last minute the Witch is outwitted, and the gingerbread figures that surround the Witch’s house are revealed as dead children waiting to be brought back to life.
Mid Wales Opera’s Music Director Jonathan Lyness told us: “Hansel and Gretel is Humperdinck’s most important work. Originally a simple setting for children of four folksongs from Grimm’s tale, the composer expanded the work into the fully-fledged opera we know today. It occupies a unique sound world, full of rich lyricism and a melodic appeal that ties the music directly to folksong, within which the children’s adventures are brought vividly to life. Setting up and interweaving the story are three famous orchestral showpieces – the Overture, the Witch’s Ride and the Pantomine. The composer Richard Strauss declared the opera a masterpiece, conducting its first performance in 1893, and the work has been a mainstay of opera houses world-wide ever since.”
This new production of Hansel and Gretel, the first ever by Mid Wales Opera, is directed and designed by MWO’s Artistic Director Richard Studer. The opera is sung in the English translation by David Pountney, with a cast of eight professional singers, together with a chorus of children assembled locally for each theatre. Humperdinck’s lush and effervescent orchestral score, performed by MWO’s partner orchestra Ensemble Cymru, is conducted by Jonathan Lyness who has also created a new orchestration of the work especially for this production.
Hansel and Gretel opens at Hafren, Newtown on Saturday March 4th and will be touring Wales as well as visiting the Courtyard, Hereford throughout March. All the dates and details are at www.midwalesopera.co.uk Suitable for children aged 8 and over.