A Bad Idea Returns

I received the December Opera News over the weekend, and was reminded by the cover image of Philip Langridge, that once again the Met will be camping up Hansel und Gretel by having the witch played by a tenor. I suppose there are those who find this kind of thing wicked and great fun, but it adds a layer of silliness to an opera that is already misunderstood. It's my firm belief that Hansel und Gretel is not at all for children, that it's beyond their capacities to appreciate. Hansel und Gretel indulges, it is true, in any number of superficially sentimental gestures, from the Sandman and the Fourteen Angels to the wood spirits and so on. But the strategy is one of purposeful regression: it is meant to take us back into the world of our childhood, of primal fears and naive beliefs. Without this tug of memory and nostalgia, the shattering, cathartic finale, in which the lost children are returned to life and to their parents, is ineffective. A drag-queen witch only breaks the spell.

However, one compensation will be the magnificent Christine Schafer, just about the finest Lulu I ever heard, as Gretel. And, as mentioned earlier, a chance to sample Vladimir Jurowski.