Humperdinck’s HANSEL AND GRETEL
JANUARY 18 (7:30PM), JANUARY 20 (7:00PM), JANUARY 22 (7:00PM), JANUARY 24 (7:30PM), JANUARY 26 (2:00PM)
JANET QUINNEY LAWSON CAPITOL THEATRE
Gretel
Composed by Engelbert Humperdinck with Libretto by Adelheid Wette
Premiere – December 23, 1893, Hoftheater, Weimar
Previously at Utah Opera – 2011, 2004, 1993, 1992, 1991, 1990, 1989 Performed in German with English Supertitles (Captions)
CAST
(in order of vocal appearance)
Maureen McKay
Hansel Sarah Coit**
Gertrude (the mother) ........... Aubrey Adams-McMillan
Peter (the father)
Sandman
Gabriel Preisser
Sarah Scofield*
Dew Fairy .......................... Stephanie Chee*
The Witch
Angels & Woodland Animals
Freddie Ballentine
Children’s Ballet Theatre
Gingerbread Children ........ The Madeleine Choir School
ARTISTIC TEAM
Conductor .................. Stephanie Rhodes Russell
Stage Director & Choreographer Kyle Lang
Children’s Chorus Director
Melanie Malinka
Scenic Designer ...................... Steven C. Kemp
Costume Designer
Susan Memmott Allred
Lighting Designer Driscoll Otto
Wig & Makeup Designer .................. Kate Casalino
Assistant Conductor
Principal Coach
Austin McWilliams
Carol Anderson
Guest Coach ...................... Timothy Accurso**
Assistant Director Marinette Gomez
Stage Manager Lisa R. Hays
Assistant Stage Managers Hannah Schumacher
Taylynn Rushton
Supertitle Musician Mitchell Atencio
Set rented from New Orleans Opera
Costumes built by Utah Opera
Supertitle Translation by Utah Opera
Set designed by Steven C. Kemp, provided by the New Orleans Opera Association as Co-Produced with Opera San Antonio
The performance run time is approximately 2 hours 20 minutes with one intermission
*Current Resident Artist
**Former Resident Artist
Aubrey Adams-McMillan (Utah)
Gertrude (the mother)
Most Recently at Utah Opera, Thaïs
Recently:
Amahl and the Night Visitors, University of Utah
Mezzo Soloist, 80th commemoration of D-Day, Paris
Upcoming:
Bach Arias, NOVA Chamber Music Series
Kate Casalino (New York)
Wig & Makeup Designer
Most Recently at Utah Opera, Sweeney Todd
Recently:
Faust, Academy of Vocal Arts
The Queen of Versailles, Pre-Broadway World Premiere
Upcoming:
Madame Butterfly, Utah Opera
Freddie Ballentine (Germany)
The Witch
Utah Opera Debut
Recently:
The Manchurian Candidate, Austin Opera
Der Kaiser von Atlantis, New World Symphony
Upcoming:
We Are The Lucky Ones, Dutch National Opera
Stephanie Chee (California)
Dew Fairy
Utah Opera Debut
Recently:
Messiah, Utah Symphony | Utah Opera
The Rape of Lucretia, Rice University Shepherd School of Music
Upcoming:
Madame Butterfly, Utah Opera
Sarah Coit (Florida) Hansel
Most Recently at Utah Opera, The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs
Recently:
The Barber of Seville, Tri-Cities Opera
Cruzar la Cara de la Luna, Opera San Antonio
Upcoming:
Maria Stuarda, Opera Baltimore
Kyle Lang (California)
Stage Director & Choreographer
Most Recently at Utah Opera, The Pirates of Penzance
Recently:
Carmen, Virginia Opera
Don Giovanni, San Diego Opera
Upcoming:
La traviata, San Diego Opera
Steven C. Kemp (Texas) Scenic Designer
Most Recently at Utah Opera, Rigoletto
Recently:
Cavalleria rusticana & Pagliacci, Pittsburgh Opera
Carmen, Virginia Opera
Upcoming:
La bohème, Opera Colorado, Knoxville Opera, and Opera Carolina
Melanie Malinka (Germany) Children’s Chorus Director
Most Recently at Utah Opera, The Little Prince
Recently:
The Magic Flute, Grand Teton Music Festival
La bohème, Utah Opera
Upcoming:
Pagliacci, Utah Opera
Maureen McKay (Connecticut)
Gretel
Utah Opera Debut
Recently:
Tannhäuser, The Metropolitan Opera
A Thousand Splendid Suns, Seattle Opera
Upcoming:
Le nozze di Figaro, The Metropolitan Opera
Driscoll Otto (Texas)
Lighting Designer
Most Recently at Utah Opera, The Daughter of the Regiment
Recently:
L’Amant anonyme, Boston Lyric Opera
Upcoming:
Orpheus and Eurydice, The Dallas Opera Aida, Oper im Steinbruch
Susan Memmott Allred (Utah)
Costume Designer
Most Recently at Utah Opera, The Marriage of Figaro
Recently:
La traviata, Pittsburgh Opera
La bohème, Utah Opera
Gabriel Preisser (Florida)
Peter (the father)
Most Recently at Utah Opera, Silent Night
Recently:
Il barbiere di Siviglia, Indianapolis Opera
Sweeney Todd, Helena Symphony
Upcoming: Cendrillon, Opera Orlando
Sponsored by
Kathie & Chuck Horman
Stephanie Rhodes Russell (Texas) Conductor
Most Recently at Utah Opera, The Daughter of the Regiment Recently:
The Jungle Book, Washington National Opera Roméo et Juliette, Arizona Opera Upcoming:
Aida, Arizona Opera
The Madeleine Choir School
A Place to Begin. A Place to Become. A Place to Belong.
The Madeleine Choir School is a Roman Catholic school that offers an exceptional education to its students through music, academics, and a focus on the whole student. Serving students in Pre-kindergarten through Grade Eight, the school is unique in Utah and one of only a few in the United States that offers students the opportunity to not only study music, but to put their knowledge into practice every day.
With daily Masses, Sunday services, regular concerts, biennial domestic and international tours, and frequent collaborations with Utah Symphony | Utah Opera, the Grand Teton Music Festival, and other arts organizations, students
Sarah Scofield (France) Sandman
Most Recently at Utah Opera, Thaïs Recently:
Messiah, Utah Symphony | Utah Opera
The Little Prince, Utah Opera Upcoming:
Madame Butterfly, Utah Opera
at The Madeleine Choir School not only learn about music, they lead performances at the highest level. Combined with rigorous academic and physical education, The Madeleine Choir School offers an unique environment dedicated to caring for the whole student so they become engaged scholars, effective communicators, dedicated liturgical musicians, and responsible world citizens who seek to build a civilization of justice, mercy, and love.
We invite you to experience the unique atmosphere of The Madeleine Choir School firsthand. Please visit our website at utmcs.org to schedule an admissions tour, or contact our Director of Admissions at admissions@utmcs.org or 801323-9850 ext. 103. We look forward to welcoming you to The Madeleine Choir School.
Choristers of The Madeleine Choir School
Anaya Alt
Claudia Barker
Vivien Browning
Lilah Burrell
Riley Coursey
Gabrielle Cutshall
Andrew Deputy
Gwyneth Foy
Lillian Hanley
Luca Hesse
Noah Hesse
Tala Hobson
Arina Ispolatova
Benjamin Just
Gabriel
Motschiedler
Meg Nuvan
Eva Peterson
Mateo Sigala
Yu-Jin Song
Roshni Tathireddy
Pavlos
Tsoutsounakis
Ola Wilcox
Christoph Zeller
Eleanor Zidow
Sponsored by Charles Boynton
HANSEL AND GRETEL + ENGELBERT AND ADELHEID +JACOB AND WILHELM = OPERA MAGIC
By Michael Clive
It took three pairs of siblings to create Hansel and Gretel, one of the most beloved of all fairy-tale operas.
Engelbert Humperdinck and his sister Adelheid Wetter were the composer-librettist team, while a certain Jacob and Wilhelm—whom we know as the Brothers Grimm—transcribed the story of siblings Hansel and Gretel, who were stranded and hungry in the forest overnight. Jacob and Wilhelm added literary flair and deep linguistic scholarship to folk tradition, giving posterity a rather severe morality tale (albeit with a happy ending). Adelheid’s scenario brightens the darkness, keeping the original’s life-lessons intact. But the most important of the half-dozen siblings, of course, are the opera’s doughty, delightful title characters, who have a thing or two to teach us.
Hansel and Gretel is not just kids’ stuff: The lushly tuneful score, which mixes folk melodies with Humperdinck’s most inspired arias and orchestral writing, made this opera a smash hit with demanding German music enthusiasts and critics, as well as children, from the moment it opened— two days before Christmas 1893 in Weimar. Since then its popularity has never flagged; it grew to become a yuletide tradition with many opera companies, and today is composer Engelbert Humperdinck’s sole claim to fame.
Humperdinck was 36 when he began work on Hansel and Gretel. Born in the German town of Siegburg in 1854, he started piano lessons and proved his talents early on, producing his first compositions when he was seven, and then two musical plays at age 13. Though his parents tried
to steer him away from music and toward architecture as a vocation, he enrolled at the Cologne Conservatory in 1872. In 1876, a scholarship enabled him to study with the esteemed pedagogues Franz Lechner and Josef Rheinberger, and in 1879 the Mendelssohn Foundation in Berlin awarded him the first Mendelssohn Prize. Further awards permitted travels in Italy, France, and Spain—the kind of cultural touring considered foundational for 19thcentury European composers.
After meeting Richard Wagner on his travels, Humperdinck became the master’s protégé, assisting him at Bayreuth and serving as music tutor to his son Siegfried. (Wagner was 21 years older than Humperdinck.) Their close association is evident in Humperdinck’s music and would have been a serious credential for any young composer of that time. Humperdinck went on to teach at conservatories in Barcelona and Frankfurt.
It’s interesting to note that the German Humperdinck, like the Frenchman Camille Saint-Saëns, lived until 1921, when musical modernism was painfully coming into existence. Both composers brought the sound of the 19th century into the 20th and looked backward toward Romanticism, not ahead to tonal experiments. Though we can hear Wagner’s imprint on Humperdinck’s style, we do not hear Wagner’s modernity. Like Wagner, Humperdinck employs thematic motifs, but Hansel and Gretel hews to the tradition of set-pieces in the form of melodious songs and ensembles with familiar structure. In contrast with Wagner’s operas, Humperdinck’s music never leaves themes and harmonies unresolved.
Still, Humperdinck’s intricate craftsmanship and dense, layered handling of a large orchestra are masterful in Hansel and Gretel, and his scoring takes full advantage of Wagner’s orchestral expansionism. The opera’s melodies, of course, are irresistibly charming, and there are probably enough of them for two or three hit operas. Humperdinck produced other choral and orchestral works that were successful during his lifetime, but today he is known almost entirely as the composer of Hansel and Gretel
The premiere of Hansel and Gretel was conducted by Richard Strauss, already a successful composer himself and soon to become the foremost composer of Germanlanguage operas. In 1923, Hansel and Gretel became the first opera to be broadcast from London’s Royal Opera House; eight years later it became the first opera to be broadcast live from The Metropolitan Opera in New York.
SYNOPSIS: THE STORY OF HANSEL AND GRETEL
Act II
Is that the sound if a wind-borne witch? Is she coming for Hansel and Gretel? We can feel the swooping air currents as we listen to Gingerbread Witch riding her broom in the “Witch’s Ride,” the evocative orchestral prelude that opens Act II. But the children seem unconcerned as Gretel weaves a floral crown and Hansel searches for strawberries. Soon they are nibbling strawberries rather than gathering them. Finally, with the strawberries gone and darkness closing in, they realize they are lost, and something is coming— something that grows more menacing as it comes closer. But what is it?
Act I
The action opens at the snug home of a broom-maker and his wife. Their children, Hansel and Gretel, are doing chores—or should be. But while daughter Gretel sings to herself as she works, son Hansel jests, turning her song into a ditty about how hungry he is. When Gretel reminds him of their father’s advice—that the Lord provides for those in need—Hansel replies that they cannot eat words. But Gretel discloses that a neighbor has given their mother a jug of milk that will help in making their supper, and Hansel, excited at the prospect, skims some cream from the top. Gretel tells him to get back to work, but soon they are dancing instead.
Their mother enters and is upset when she sees that the children have been slacking off. Angrily threatening to punish them, she accidentally spills the milk. Her dinner plans now ruined, she sends Hansel and Gretel into the forest to forage for wild strawberries. Once they are gone, her anxieties about caring for her family are more evident. She expresses her sorrow and appeals to God for help.
Approaching the house, the broom-maker can be heard singing. He’s been drinking, but that’s not the only reason he’s in a good mood: he’s laden with provisions including bacon, flour, eggs, onions, beans, and more, thanks to banner sales of his brooms. But when he learns that the children have been sent into the woods, he grows concerned. He tells his wife about the evil Gingerbread Witch—a notorious hag with magical powers who lurks in the forest, lures children with cakes and sweets, and then pushes them into her oven, transforming them into gingerbread. The worried parents rush out to look for their son and daughter.
It is the Sandman, who loves them and will protect them as they sleep. Once he sprinkles their eyes with his sleepsand, the children can barely keep them open. With another lushly beautiful interlude, the children sing their evening prayers. A tender postlude conveys all the beauty and innocence of childhood as fourteen angels array themselves protectively around Hansel and Gretel, lulling them to sleep.
Act III
With the dawn comes the Sandman’s morning counterpart, the Dew Fairy, who sprinkles dew on Hansel and Gretel to waken them. Soon the children notice a fantastic gingerbread house: fanciful, ornate, non-GMO, and 100% delicious. As they nibble, a voice calls out, demanding to know: who is the mouse-y nibbling on her house-y? It is the voice of the Gingerbread Witch!
Pretending to be just a sweet lady proffering sweets, the Witch tempts Hansel and Gretel with goodies of all sorts. Soon their suspicions are aroused. When they plan an escape, the Witch uses her wand to immobilize them. But their resourcefulness is by no means at an end: while Hansel slyly convinces the Witch that he needs further fattening, Gretel steals her wand, freeing them to move again; when the Witch tells Gretel to check the gingerbread cookies in her oven, Hansel pushes the Witch into it— restoring life to all the Witch’s gingerbread children. The Witch’s oven explodes, and with Hansel and Gretel’s further help, full freedom of movement is restored to all the newly liberated children.
Amid the happy scene, Hansel and Gretel’s parents are heard approaching. They joyfully reunite with all the happy youngsters as Hansel’s father reminds them of God’s justice and mercy.
THE CHERISHED TRADITION OF UTAH OPERA’S HANSEL AND GRETEL
By David Silvano
Throughout Utah Opera’s history, our production of Hansel and Gretel has enchanted audiences with its magical blend of music and storytelling. In fact, it has been so beloved that it has become one of the most programmed works in the company’s history. Engelbert Humperdinck’s adaptation of the classic Grimm fairy-tale is not only a beloved opera for families, but also a showcase of Utah’s vibrant cultural partnerships—chief among them, the ongoing collaboration with The Madeleine Choir School. This partnership has not only enriched the performances but has also provided an invaluable educational experience for the young singers involved.
As Utah Opera prepares for yet another performance of Hansel and Gretel, the production continues to uphold its status as a cultural staple, celebrated for its artistry and community engagement.
A Timeless Opera
Since its debut in 1893, Hansel and Gretel has been a favorite for opera companies worldwide. Humperdinck’s lush, Wagner-inspired score pairs beautifully with the fairy-tale setting, making the opera an ideal choice for audiences young and old. The story follows two children lost in the woods who
encounter a wicked witch with a house made of sweets, only to triumph over her evil with their wit and bravery. The themes of hope, innocence, and overcoming adversity resonate as powerfully today as they did over a century ago.
At Utah Opera, Hansel and Gretel has become a favorite, providing a sense of warmth, nostalgia, and celebration for the community. The production brings together opera lovers, families, and first-time attendees alike, creating a shared experience that invites audiences into the magic of live performance.
Collaboration and Legacy: The Madeleine Choir School
At the heart of Hansel and Gretel is Utah Opera’s longstanding collaboration with The Madeleine Choir School, a partnership that has flourished for the past two decades. Since their first appearance with Utah Opera in 2005 for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the young choristers have appeared in a variety of productions and have become an iconic part of any opera or symphonic work featuring children’s chorus.
Portraying the children who are freed from the Witch’s spell thanks to Hansel and Gretel, the children’s chorus enhances the performance both musically and theatrically. Their young, pure voices add an ethereal joy and celebration at the conclusion of the opera. Their participation is more than a charming addition—it’s a vital component of the storytelling, symbolizing the hope and purity that ultimately save Hansel and Gretel from danger.
Performing on the Utah Opera stage offers the invaluable opportunity for The Madeleine Choir School students to apply their education and experience professional-level music-making. Their rigorous music curriculum including vocal technique, stagecraft, discipline, and the importance of collaboration ensures that the students are wellprepared, and their performances have consistently earned praise for their professionalism and artistry. But the real magic of this collaboration is in fostering their lifelong love of music and offering a transformative experience for these young artists. Singing in a professional opera production gives them the confidence and skill to pursue future musical endeavors.
This partnership embodies our shared values of artistic excellence, education, and community engagement and provides a nurturing ground for the next generation of musicians. Each year, The Madeleine Choir School’s students bring fresh energy to our productions ensuring that this legacy continues to cultivate and inspire the next generation of musicians, while creating a cultural experience that resonates across all ages.
Photo credit: Kent Miles
Engelbert Humperdinck (1854–1921) was a German composer who began his career as an assistant to Richard Wagner in Bayreuth in a variety of capacities, including tutoring Wagner’s son Siegfried in music and composition. Hansel and Gretel was Humperdinck’s first complete opera and remains the foundation of his reputation. The libretto was written by Humperdinck’s sister, Adelheid Wette (1858–1916), and is based on the version found in the Brothers Grimm collection of folk stories. Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859) Grimm were German academics whose groundbreaking linguistic work revolutionized the understanding of language development.
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