Theater "Hansel and Gretel" opera in Bern: dream play in a wardrobe
Bühnen Bern presents Engelbert Humperdinck's fairytale opera "Hansel and Gretel" as a psychologizing dream play. The new production, which premiered on Saturday, was particularly convincing musically.
09.11.2025, 10:10
SDA
Humperdinck's highly romantic "Kinderstubenweihfestspiel" is a fixture in the Christmas repertoire at many theaters. It serves as an introduction for children to the world of grand opera.
Accordingly, "Hansel and Gretel" is a challenge for the director's theater. How far can one go with the softly-soaped adaptation of the famous fairy tale without being accused of pandering? And without putting off the general family audience?
In Bern, director and set designer Raimund Orfeo Vogt has come up with his own, if not unconventional, realization idea. He stages the fairy-tale festival set to popular children's songs as a psychologizing dream play.
The brother and sister are not cast out into the forest by their mother, as in Grimm's fairy tale, but locked up in the wardrobe. In the darkness there, fantasy and dreams play many a trick on them. This leads to the climax when the starving children's mother turns into a gluttonous witch.
Scenically beautiful images
The doubling of the levels is made clear by the fact that the siblings remain present as children in the real world, while the singers play the roles of Hansel and Gretel in the dream or fantasy world.
You can tell from the production that the director is a trained stage designer. The scenery is beautiful to look at when the wardrobe becomes a monstrous forest with the hanging coats as oversized trees, between which Hansel and Gretel shrink to tiny creatures.
Not everything is immediately coherent; a certain amount of interpretation is required. On the other hand, the performance is musically convincing. The ensemble is on top form as singers - especially Evgenia Asanova and Patricia Westley as Hansel and Gretel and Claude Eichenberger as the Mother and the Witch. The Bern Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Alevtina Ioffe masters the score courageously, without relying too heavily on overpowering accents.
The Zurich Opera House follows
The "Hansel and Gretel" series continues next Sunday (November 16) at Zurich Opera House. There in a new production by Thom Luz, who has made a name for himself as a creator of rather absurd and twisted musical dream games. The Zurich Opera House will broadcast the premiere of Luz's first production of a repertoire opera live in numerous cinemas in the canton.
