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.
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