Humperdink's Children Hansel u Gretel Making Gingerbread p2

23 Nov 03 Humperdink's Children Hansel u Gretel Making Gingerbread p2
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/fairytales_myths_fables_&legends/104793

Sur La Lune: Hanseel u Gretel
http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/hanselgretel/index.html
annotated Hansel

Index of illustrations on Sur La Lune
http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/illustrations/hanselgretel/index.html

Fairytales were ideal for stage adaption in a strictly controlled political world where the extremes of wealth and poverty could not be ignored. Censorship was a state institution, forcing Mozart in an earlier day to rewrite and revise Don Giovanni no less than five times and create a contrived Happy Ending. Opera houses are not private or public concerns, but state controlled. Pressure existed that is invisible today. Using fairytales gave the creators a way of escape and freedom to express what otherwise might not be allowed. Hoffmann produced The Mouse King and the Nutcracker; Strauss, Die Frau Ohne Schatten and Puccini, Turandot. Mahler contributed Das Knaben des Wunderhorn and Das Klagende Lied. All of them, works are derived from children's literature, escaping censorship by allowing the freedom of dreams in a world beset decade after decade with wars, poverty and the ravages of the industrial revolution.

Although Humperdinck is often burdened with the shadow of Wagner, being his editor, he was respected and admired by his contemporaries: Strauss, Reinhadt and Puccini. Nor was he the only composer to adapt "fairytales" for stage. He was deeply influenced by Mozart who wrote translucent works for children and produced the eternal favorite, Zauberflote.

In Vienna, Klimt formed the Secession, breaking away from stylized romantic art and across Europe, Art Noveau became the new movement, allowing myth, fantasy and fairytale to leap into paintings and onto buildings. In England, Oscar Wilde paraded Art for Art's Sake and the Pre-Raphaelites took up position against the traditional school. The golden age of fantasy and artistic expression began spreading throughout Europe, bearing sumptious fruit in the performing and applied arts. Literature followed.

Perhaps, the Grimm story would have dropped from the pages of children's books without the Humperdinck adaptation. The story appeared in the 1812 collection of Grimm's Childrens and Household Tales. The Grimm brothers originally collected the stories to create a compendium of German literature in reaction to the French nationalization and Napoleonic influence. When the stories were first published, parents were offended as they circulated among children. This was not the original intent of the brothers. In response, the stories were edited and changed to make them more suitable for younger readers. Today, school authorities wriggle like cut worms when parents complain. Not much has changed.

D. L Ashliman, Hansel u Gretel
http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm015a.html
a comparison of changes in the two editions 18112 and 1857

Hansel u Gretel
http://www.ricochet-jeunes.org/eng/biblio/books/hansel.html
bibliography with links to chief illustrators

Why did Humperdinck make the cuts? Stagework has different problems with strict restrictions on time. Humperdinck was not Wagner. Any adaptation of a novel or play has to be compressed to make it work in opera. The audience gets bored easily. In the Grimm version, the children are lost in the woods twice. They hear their parent's discussing the matter before they fall asleep. How many audiences will sit through a repetition of Babes in the Woods? Not many. The composer and librettist make assumptions that the audience knows the conflicts alluded on stage. They presume the audience is intelligent. Writing the parental asides of getting rid of the kids for financial reasons doesn't win sympathy from an audience. The perspective must be altered to bring the audience into the children's world.

However, the terror of being lost and the utter helplessness of being lost is a primal fear of man-- whether the city, woods or life. This creates the tension in both the story and the opera. The allusions and use of allegory extend beyond the children's world of the Witch and the Gingerbread House. All of us dream of being received and loved. All of us long for love and acceptance from a parent, from a father, alluding to fundamental religious understanding in Judaism and Christianity. We fear the night. We fear the dangers of the unknown. And in crisis, we find ourselves helpless against the invisible forces of social pressures or evil that we cannot easily identify. We become dependent on the "angels" about to protect us from harm. We hope that the policeman hears our cry, we hope that the official does not demand the bribe under the table. We rely on those we do not know and pray eversomuch that the doctor is competent when we enter the hospital. And when escaping narrowly from danger, we know no greater happiness than returning safely home, even if only to a damp room with cold fire. We each understand the hapless plight of Hansel and Gretel as they beseech divine protection before they go to sleep...

We hope for the good that comes the next day, to overcome the evil in our life and dream to stuff the horrible witch back into her own oven. So every year, throughout Europe, Hansel u Gretel come alive in the opera house and kids beg their parents to make gingerbread houses.

Humperdinck: Hansel und Gretel
http://www.lyricoperaofwaco.org/education/humperdinck/Hansel_and_Grethel.htm
Waco Lyric Opera—program notes with a history and illustrations

Hansel u Gretel
http://www.geocities.com/ehub035/hansel.htm
film production of live opera
polygramophone recording with Fassbaender as Hansel and Gruberova as Gretel
George Solti others: Helga Dernesch, Sena Jurinac, Hermann Prey
very worthwhile recording, sorry does not say which house, but very likely Munich or Vienna State Opera as Fassbaender doesn't like travelling and the cast was also in Vienna

von Stade / Cortrubas would be also very good combination but no info
http://webs.sinectis.com.ar/cpalacios/hansel_files/image003.jpg

http://webs.sinectis.com.ar/cpalacios/hansel_files/image005.jpg
a beautiful set of the opera

Engelbert Humperdinck
http://www.epinions.com/musc_mu-472241
Cast: Brigitte Fassbaender, Lucia Popp, Walter Berry, Julia Hamari, Anny Schlemm.
Wiener Philharmoniker, Sir Georg Solti
very good cast

Bayerisches Staatsoper
http://www.staatsorchester.de/c.php/index_bsoc.php?dom=dom3&l=en
official site has virtual tour
has a Hansel on Program , tribute to Lucia Popp
Zubin Mehta, resident conductor

Vienna Volksoper
http://www.volksoper.at/Content.Node2/home/spielplan/spielplan_detail_werkbeschreibung.php?eventid=321279
double click pictures for enlargement
at the Volksoper—they made special programs with paper ginerbread houses and cut-outs of the sets one year

Larry Ferguson, An Examination of the Structure, Pattern and Hero in Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s, Hansel and Gretel
http://www.ed.psu.edu/k-12/edpgs/su95/larry/han&gre.htm

Carrie Dishlip, Hansel and Gretel : Females in Fairytales
http://info-center.ccit.arizona.edu/~ws/ws200/fall97/grp17/hansel.html

Good Housekeeping: Annual Gingerbread House
http://magazines.ivillage.com/goodhousekeeping/recipes/holiday/articles/0,12873,284506_290441,00.html
instructions and recipes for gingerbread houses 5 pages

Good Housekeeping: dough
http://magazines.ivillage.com/goodhousekeeping/recipefinder/recipe/0,,399536,00.html

Good Housekeeping: frosting
http://magazines.ivillage.com/goodhousekeeping/recipefinder/recipe/0,,392705,00.html

Recipe Link : Holiday Message Board for Gingerbread
http://www.allbaking.net/holiday/gingerbread.html
has cookbooks just for gingerbread houses

Family Fun: Gingerbread House
http://familyfun.go.com/recipes/special/feature/famf1202_feat_firstginger/famf1202_feat_firstginger.html
another recipe for building the gingerbread house

RELATED
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23 Nov 03 Humperdinck's Children making Gingerbread p1
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/fairytales_myths_fables_&legends/104795
http://pogoland.blogspot.com/2003/11/humperdincks-children-making.html

CHRISTMAS STORIES
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21 Dec 03 Little Match Girl
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/fairytales_myths_fables_&legends/105331
http://pogoland.blogspot.com/2003/12/little-match-girl.html

14^th Dec 03 Fir Tree by HCA
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/fairytales_myths_fables_&legends/105215
http://pogoland.blogspot.com/2003/12/fir-tree.html

16 Nov 03 Nutcracker
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/fairytales_myths_fables_&legends/104652
http://pogoland.blogspot.com/2003/11/nutcracker.html

5 Dec 2004 Kidnapped Santa
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/16568/112042

1 December 2004 Winter Festival Event
http://www.suite101.com/event.cfm/277