Hansel and Gretel

In the forest of Ilsenstein lives a witch who catches children and bakes them for her gingerbread house.

The broom-maker’s hut. The parents have gone in search of food, leaving Hansel and Gretel alone, with the task of making brooms and darning stockings. The children are hungry; seeing a jug of milk, they start dancing in anticipation of rice pudding, instead of working.

Their mother comes home, tired and empty-handed, and in her anger at finding the children not hard at work, she upsets the milk. She sends the children into the forest to pick strawberries, saying they are not to come home until the basket is full.

Meanwhile their father returns, merry and laden with food, after a successful day. He is horrified to hear that the children are in the forest, where the witch of Ilsenstein will be lying in wait. Both parents rush off to the forest to look for them.

Gathering strawberries, the children have come near to Ilsenstein. Hansel’s basket is full, and Gretel has woven a garland of flowers. They start to play, and fail to notice that night is falling.

Hansel has forgotten the way home; the friendly forest suddenly seems threatening and filled with danger. The Sandman appears and promises to protect the children, who say their prayers and settle down to sleep. Fourteen angels watch over them.

The Dew Fairy wakes the children.

They are hungry – and what do they see? A little house, made all of gingerbread – just right for breakfast. As they nibble at it, the witch comes out and puts them under a spell. Hansel needs fattening up, but Gretel can be baked and eaten immediately.

The witch tells her to look into the oven to see if the gingerbread is ready, but Gretel pretends not to understand. The witch demonstrates; Gretel pushes her into the oven and slams the door shut.

The oven explodes, and gingerbread children appear, standing stiffly until Hansel breaks the spell on them with the witch’s juniper bush. The gingerbread children thank Hansel and Gretel, who in turn thank their fourteen guardian angels. As they all sing a song making fun of the witch, the parents appear and the family is joyfully reunited.

Hansel and Gretel began for Engelbert Humperdinck on a small scale: his sister, Adelheid Wette, had planned a short fairy-tale play for her children at Christmas, with just a few songs. However, the two siblings became so engrossed in the material that it emerged as a full-scale opera, which was received enthusiastically at its première in 1893 and has remained a fixture in the repertoire.

The work is known primarily for its many passages resembling folk-song. In fact, Humperdinck used only a few familiar folk-songs (e. g. "Suzie, pretty Suzie" or "A little man stands silent in the wood"). Most of the songs now sometimes mistaken for genuine folk-songs were composed by Humperdinck himself (e.g. "Come on, brother, dance with me" or "When at night I go to bed").

These simple melodies are incorporated into Humperdinck's highly expressive soundscape with its colourful instrumentation, which has often brought comparison with Richard Wagner. The influence of Wagner cannot be denied – after all, Humperdinck was his assistant in Bayreuth. In the Salzburg Marionette Theatre production, however, stage director Hinrich Horstkotte sees these musical references as a "side-swipe" at the great master – which is perceptible in the design of the marionettes. The Gingerbread Witch comes in different versions: when she coaxes the children into her house, she has the face of Cosima Wagner; later, wearing a winged helmet, she resembles Richard Wagner himself – and it is in this guise that she lands in the oven.

On the other hand, the faces of Hansel and Gretel's parents, when they come to the rescue, are those of Engelbert Humperdinck and Adelheid Wette. The stage-set, too, is full of allusions: the gingerbread house echoes the architecture of Wagner's Festival Theatre in Bayreuth; at the end, it collapses and is eaten up by all the children.

All these higher-level references may be recognised by the audience, but they are not obtrusive. Horstkotte's production can be understood as an imaginative fairy-tale for all ages, exploiting to the full the many possibilities offered by the Marionette Theatre. The Sandman, on a tightrope, soothes the children when they are frightened by the misty ghosts in the forest; the Gingerbread Witch sweeps wildly through the air, surrounded by dancing broomsticks. Accompanying this wealth of images is a recording made specially for the Salzburg Marionette Theatre by the Berlin opera ensemble Inboccallupo, conducted by Andreas Schüller.