Enchanted forest
Hänsel und Gretel
Royal Academy of Music
Jenufa
Birmingham Hippodrome
Pelléas et Mélisande
Sadler’s Wells
Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel loses none of its charm with repeated viewings, a good thing since there are plenty of productions of it around this year in the UK, the latest being at the Royal Academy of Music. I saw the first and almost wholly excellent cast, with the two children cast more plausibly than I have ever seen them before, though both Robyn Kirk, the Gretel, and Charlotte Stephenson, the Hänsel, are in their twenties. Both their singing and acting were ideal, worthy of DVD-ing, our version of immortality. The casting was strong throughout, though the Witch of Stuart Haycock, a very fine tenor, sounded too beautiful to frighten anyone. John Ramster’s production was the usual kind of thing, a contemporary kitchen, though with an extraordinarily large number of fridges, washing machines and so on, all of them empty. Dad was a lurching drunk, while Mum, more effectively, was a rather tarty and attractive youngster. Atmosphere and acting all went well until the Dream Pantomime, when good taste gave way to the grossest kitsch: the children dreamt of their parents’ wedding, and then of holding babies — themselves — in their arms. Oddly ,at exactly the same moment the orchestral playing, which had been perfectly adequate for this magical score, underwent a collapse too, with scrawny strings and wayward winds. Act III, much the least inspired, was too leisurely, and the ‘redeemed’ children were too hearty. Still, it was mainly a fine evening, with Sian Edwards conducting with deep insight.
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