Michael Tanner

Enchanted forest

Hänsel und Gretel <br /> Royal Academy of Music Jenufa<br /> Birmingham Hippodrome Pelléas et Mélisande<br /> Sadler’s Wells

issue 29 November 2008

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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