Humperdinck's "Hansel und Gretel" Quiz

Answer: False

The opera was, in fact, first performed at Weimar on December 23, 1893 (the original date was to have been the 14th, but the indisposition of one of the singers forced a postponement). Following this successful premiere, a performance was commissioned at London's Daly Theater on Boxing Day (December 26) of the following year. Christmastime performances of the work quickly became the norm, especially in Germany. Although the story clearly does not take place in December (the children could scarcely be gathering strawberries at that time of the year) and has no direct association with Christmas, the theme of innocence and virtue overcoming evil, aided by divine protection (in the form of the angels) is consonant with the sentiments of the Christmas season. Moreover, the fact that Christmas (especially in Europe) is overwhelmingly a children's holiday has always made performances of this work especially welcome at that time of the year.

Answer: Sleeping Beauty

Humperdinck followed "Hansel und Gretel" with three more fairy-tale operas: "Die Konigskinder" ("The Royal Children"), "Dornroschen" ("Briar-Rose" or "The Sleeping Beauty"), and "Die Sieben Geislein" (The Seven Goslings"). None of these ever achieved anything like the success of "Hansel und Gretel", though "Konigskinder" has been successfully revived from time to time. Ironically, it has the most tragic story of the lot; like "Hansel und Gretel", it concerns two lost children (this time of royal blood) menaced by a witch; in this case, however, they do not escape, but perish after eating of a poisoned loaf prepared by the witch.

Answer: Parsifal

Humperdinck assisted Wagner in writing out the orchestration of Parsifal and served as the stage manager for the opera's premiere. He had fallen under Wagner's spell in 1878 upon hearing the composer's mighty "Ring" cycle and had joined the Wagnerian society known as the "Orden vom Gral" ("Order of the Grail"). Previously, Humperdinck had been influenced by Lortzing upon hearing the composer's 1868 opera "Undine" which was based, like "Hansel und Gretel", on German folklore.

Answer: Richard Strauss

Humperdinck had been asked by his sister to compose incidental music for a play she had written based on the Brothers Grimm story. The composer was reluctant at first, but became so enthusiastic about the project that he expanded it into a full-length opera (he received some encouragement from his distinguished colleague and friend Hugo Wolf). He presented the manuscript to Richard Strauss.

Strauss' enthusiasm for "Hansel und Gretel" may seem rather surprising, considering his frequently trenchant comments on operas that tend toward sentimentality. He famously wrote of Thomas' "Mignon' that "...there is good opera and bad opera, and then there is 'Mignon'"; of Puccini, he commented "'Tosca', 'La Boheme', 'Madama Butterfly'; I can't tell them apart." Strauss' own operas would deal with quite different subject matter than "Hansel und Gretel", however his career as an operatic composer had not really begun yet by 1893. His first operatic effort, "Guntram", was composed in the year before "Hansel und Gretel" and was a resounding failure. The plot of "Guntram" is based on 13th century Germanic legend and recalls the heroic, idealistic themes of Wagner's "Tannhauser", "Parsifal", and "Die Meistersinger", subject matter quite removed from the decadence and world-weariness which pervade "Salome", "Elektra", "Der Rosenkavalier" "Ariadne auf Naxos", etc. Strauss, however, always retained a soft spot for his failed first effort and it may well be that he detected some of this early spark in the score of "Hansel und Gretel".

Answer: In the opera, the Witch is not pushed into the oven.

This opera may represent an early example of what is now known as "Disneyfication", in which the less savory aspects of a popular classic or fairy-tale are either mitigated or rewritten altogether. In the original story, the children have an evil stepmother, who goads the unwilling father to abandon them deep in the woods, since there is not enough food for the entire family. Hansel overhears this plan and outwits his stepmother by gathering moonstones and dropping them along the way; at night, the moonlight illuminates the stones and the children find their way back easily. On a second occasion, however, Hansel finds the door locked and is unable to gather the stones, so he drops breadcrumbs instead. These are eaten by birds, and the children become lost deep in the forest, where they come upon the Witch's cottage.
In the opera, the evil stepmother does not exist; instead, the children have a bad-tempered, overworked, but ultimately loving mother named Gertrud who becomes furious with them when she finds them singing and dancing, instead of doing their chores. Whilst chasing Hansel with a switch, she knocks over a jug of milk which she had put by for their supper. She sends the children into the woods to gather strawberries, since there is now nothing else in the house to eat; they become lost in the forest and eventually come upon the gingerbread house.

In the fairy-tale, the Witch invariably devours the children she lures to her home after baking them in her oven; the story makes no reference to the children being magically transformed into gingerbread, as they are in the opera. Humperdinck's Witch is both less cannibalistic and less of a glutton; she has saved a number of her young victims for use as a decorative gingerbread fence around her cottage. After she is killed by Hansel and Gretel (who do, indeed, push her into her own oven), these children come back to life and begin singing. Their eyes are closed and they cannot move; Gretel notices that she can open their eyes by touching them and Hansel fetches the Witch's magic branch to loosen their limbs. After singing a chorus of triumph, they enter the cottage and find the Witch transformed into a giant gingerbread cookie by her own black magic (in the story, the Witch is not thus transformed; she is "horribly burnt").

Answer: True

The role of the Witch (die Knusperhexen) was written for a dramatic soprano. It has been performed by mezzo-sopranos as well; the best, in my opinion, was Christa Ludwig in an Erato recording with Helen Donath and Anna Moffo as the children, Kiri te Kanawa as the Sandmann, and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as the Father (I would also like to have heard Ernestine Schumann-Heink, who performed the role in Hamburg under Gustav Mahler's direction and Louise Homer, who sang the role at the Metropolitan Opera in 1905).

The British comedienne Anna Russell, whose voice has never been definitively identified by experts, used to perform the role with some frequency (she can be heard, but unfortunately not seen in a film version from the 1960s featuring animated puppets). Occasionaly, however, a "comprimario" or "character" tenor has taken the role; a performance on the Telefunken label featured Peter Schrier in the role, and the American tenor Paul Franke has performed it at the Metropolitan Opera. The rather thin, slightly edgy timbre of a "character" tenor can convincingly suggest an old crone's nasal, querulous voice.

Answer: Soprano

The Sandmannchen and Taumannchen, like the role of Hansel, are both "trouser roles"; although both are male characters, they are each performed by a female singer; in this case a soprano. The treble voice is meant in each case to suggest a diminutive, elfin creature.

In some English translations of the opera, the Taumannchen is referred to merely as the "Dew Fairy" with no reference to gender, which permits the soprano to portray the character as a female sprite. The Sandmannchen is a favorite role (at least on recordings) of Dame Kiri te Kanawa, who has recorded it more than once.

Answer: The overture (Vorspiel)

The orchestral parts to the overture had not arrived from the publisher in time for the opera's premiere, consequently it could not be performed. The influence of Wagner is especially noticeable in the orchestral movements (the "Witches' Ride", for example, clearly owes something to the "Ride of the Valkyries" from "Die Walkure"); nowhere is this more apparent than in the overture, which recalls the "Tannhauser" overture in both length and form. Both begin with a hymnlike melody (the "Evening Prayer" in the case of "Hansel", the "Pilgrim's Chorus" in the case of "Tannhauser") which is reprised at the end and both are somewhat of a microcosm of the subsequent opera.

The "Hansel und Gretel" overture begins with the "Prayer", which is sharply interrupted by the trumpet theme heralding the Witch's house.

The theme to which the children sing of "der wind" ("the breeze") follows, interspersed with melodic references to the dream of protecting angels. Finally, the triumphant chorus of the dis-enchanted gingerbread children leads to a triumphant reinstatement of the "Prayer", with which the overture closes.

Answer: Their father

Gretel reminds them that their father, Peter, had spoken these words to their mother when she had yielded to despair. The line is quoted in the finale by Peter himself, when he explains to the children how the Witch has been destroyed by her own wickedness.

Answer: Brooms and brushes

Peter makes and sells brooms and brushes; he has some help from Hansel in the making of them (when the curtain rises, Hansel is seen making a broom and is later berated by his mother for not having made his share). He explains to Gertrud that he had gone into town, where weddings and other celebrations were taking place, and hawked his wares by reminding the villagers that their homes would need to be cleaned thoroughly in preparation for all the feasting.

He was able to sell all his stock at the very highest prices. His jovial mood changes abruptly when Gertrud tells him that she has sent the children into the Ilsenstein forest to gather berries. Appalled, he reminds her that the dreaded Gobbling Witch (die Knusperhexe) dwells deep in the forest awaiting the approach of hungry children.

These are lured to her enticing gingerbread house, where she imprisons them and bakes them in her oven. The brooms that had supplied the food on their table now take on a darker symbolism as he describes to Gertrud the aerial flight of the evil witches on their broomsticks ("Der Besen, der besen, was macht man damit", an aria which recalls some of Gustav Mahler's darker settings of the poems from "Des Knaben Wunderhorn").

Answer: As the Prelude (Vorspiel) to Act II

The "Hexenritt" is based on the melody of Peter's "broomstick" aria in the previous act and includes the melody of the Witch's Act III aria "Hurr hopp, hopp, hopp!". The music gradually transforms into a tranquil sylvan idyll and leads directly into Gretel's aria "Ein Mannlein steht im Walde" ("There stands a little man in the wood").

Answer: The cuckoo

As the children sit down to eat some of the berries they have gathered, they hear the sound of a cuckoo (played by the clarinet). They imitate the bird's call and sing a brief duet recalling the cuckoo's notorious habit of stealing food from other bird's nests. Soon, they begin to imitate this behaviour as well, filching berries from each other until they discover, to their horror, that they have eaten them all.

In a desperate attempt to find more, they wander further into the woods and become lost.

Answer: Fourteen

The opening line of the Prayer is
"Abends, will ich schlafen gehn,
Vierzehn Engel um mich stehn"
(usually, and fairly accurately translated as
"When at night I go to sleep,
Fourteen angels watch do keep.")
Two angels each guard their heads, guide their feet, and are at their right and left hands. Two more cover each of them in sleep, two awaken each of them each at dawn, and two more guide each of their steps to heaven. The subsequent "Dream Pantomime" features tewnty-eight angels, fourteen for each child.

Answer: Rosine

The Witch introduces herself as Rosine Leckermaul (usually translated as Rosine Daintymouth; Rosine is the German word for raisin). She describes herself rather disingenuously as being "...as innocent as a tiny child" ("...unschuldig, wie ein kleines kind"), thus explaining the unique attraction that children have for her and giving a new and distinctly unsettling meaning to the well-worn phrase "you are what you eat".

Answer: True

The first live radio broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera was a performance of "Hansel und Gretel" on Christmas Day, 1931. This was a Friday matinee; broadcasts of the Saturday matinees would later become the norm. The broadcast was sponsored by the Texaco oil company, which would sponsor the broadcasts throughout the remainder of the twentieth century, representing the longest continuous sponsorship in radio history (this sponsorship has sadly ended as of April 2004, though the broadcasts continue, now financed by the Metropolitan itself).

The 1931 broadcast was conducted by Karl Riedel, and featured Henriette Wakefield, Dorothee Manski, Editha Fleischer, Queena Mario, and Gustav Schützendorf in its cast.