大象传媒

Donald Macleod delves into a period when Humperdinck became an international celebrity because of his fairy-tale opera.

German composer, Engelbert Humperdinck, became an international celebrity with his music for the stage. His lasting hit was his opera, Hansel and Gretel, which is featured in its entirety across this week. There were other huge successes too. Die Heirat wider Willen (The Reluctant Marriage) was highly praised after its premiere at the Royal Opera in Berlin, and Humperdinck took 19 curtain calls in London for his stage work Das Wunder (The Miracle). In New York, at the Metropolitan Opera House, after the premiere of Humperdinck鈥檚 opera K枚nigskinder (King's Children), the applause just kept going so that the management had to turn the lights off, in order to force the audience to leave.

Humperdinck was born in Siegburg, and from early on his parents encouraged his musical abilities, provided he focused on his other school commitments, too. He went on to study at the Cologne Conservatoire and soon fell under the spell of Wagner whom he met, and later worked with, in the preparation of Wagner鈥檚 opera, Parsifal. Humperdinck travelled Europe, and in the early 1890s he saw the premiere of his own opera Hansel and Gretel, which was performed on sixty-nine German stages within one year. Humperdinck became a professor of composition in Berlin and, between his teaching duties, he continued to write many works for the stage. Opera houses clambered to give the premiere of a new work by Humperdinck and he became a giant of his times. It is his opera Hansel and Gretel for which he is remembered today.

Humperdinck was convinced that his Hansel and Gretel would be a failure. He was aware of how popular Mascagni's dramatic opera, Cavalleria rusticana, had become and was convinced that his fairy tale was not what the public wanted. The composer Richard Strauss conducted the premiere in Weimar, and thought Hansel and Gretel was a masterwork. The audience reaction was tepid, but when it produced in Munich, not long afterwards, Humperdinck was given five curtain calls. Within just one year, nearly seventy stages in Germany put on Hansel and Gretel, and a touring company was formed which played the work to a further 72 smaller towns. Richard Wagner's widow, Cosima Wagner, was enchanted by the opera and wanted to direct a further production. Humperdinck was now seen as a legitimate heir of his hero, Wagner.

An das Christkind
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone
J枚rg Demus, piano

贵谤眉丑濒颈苍驳蝉蝉别丑苍蝉耻肠丑迟
Octopus Chamber Choir
Bart van Reyn, director

Altdeutsches Liebeslied
Christina Landshamer, soprano
Hinrich Alpers, piano

Wiegenlied
Christina Landshamer, soprano
Hinrich Alpers, piano

Hansel and Gretel (excerpt)
Jennifer Larmore (Hansel), mezzo-soprano
Ruth Ziesak (Gretal), soprano
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
Donald Runnicles, conductor

Piano Quintet in G (Adagio)
Andreas Kirpal, piano
Diogenes Quartet

Hansel and Gretel (excerpt)
Jennifer Larmore (Hansel), mezzo-soprano
Ruth Ziesak (Gretal), soprano
Rosemary Joshua (Sandman), soprano
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
Donald Runnicles, conductor

Das Licht der Welt
Christiane Karg, soprano
Gerold Huber, piano

Produced by Luke Whitlock