From the glorious singing to J. Matthew Root’s imaginative projected sets, the Boheme Opera New Jersey’s production of “Hansel and Gretel” was consistently precise and meticulous.
This includes Boheme artistic director Joseph Pucciatti’s staging and pacing of an Engelbert Humperdinck score that goes from being bright to lush and provides much more than the background for what is essentially a fairy tale.
“Hansel and Gretel,” after all, has its origin in the tales of the Brothers Grimm. Humperdinck gives texture to the story with some passages as complex and ominous as others are intentionally sing-song and simple.
Pucciatti and his orchestra found all of the nuances in Humperdinck’s opera. They added to a listening experience that was lovely whether from the orchestra pit or from the stage where singers hit every note without the slightest trace of effort, harmonized gorgeously, and gave color to the libretto written by Adelheid Wette, who was Humperdinck’s sister.
That is, when you could understand the libretto. The rub in all of Boheme’s graceful perfection is the acoustics at the College of New Jersey’s Kendall Theater, where lack of buffers and direct lines bring all sound from the same point, the stage. This made much of the text, sung as beautifully as it was, practically indecipherable. The only performers who were able to defeat being clear over a wall of Humperdinck’s music were Kevin Patrick and Alison Bolshoi, who, predictably have the lowest voices.
Sopranos tend to be unlucky these days. Modern sound designers often place amplification as such volumes, the poor coloraturas have their diction disappear in the ether.
In Boheme’s case, the problem wasn’t technological, it was architectural. The orchestra pit and the stage compete for what you’ll hear. In the case of the sopranos, including mezzo Rebecca Sacks, the pit wins.
The pity of this is Sacks, leads Kerri Lynn Slominski and Kaitlyn Tierney, and Jacqueline Quirk are exemplars of the precision and meticulousness I mention in the first paragraph. So are Patrick and Bolshoi.
When the libretto can be heard clearly, you can revel in the performers’ crisp diction and thoughtfulness about how to maximize the lyric.
Naturally, the excellent harmony and pure tones of the voices come through. This “Hansel and Gretel” was a delight to hear throughout its performance. Getting involved with all that is going on and savoring all Wette, or her translator to English, includes in her libretto, is seriously impeded, including some playful passages between Hansel and Gretel and some witty lines from The Witch.
The good news is ‘Hansel and Gretel” is such a well-known story, the gist of it is clear even when the words are not. One always knows where he or she is in the course of the fairy tale. Discernable tone and timbre of voice tells clearly when delight, concern, or anger are being expressed. It is obvious who the Sandman and Dew Fairy are. The children, their parents, and The Witch are familiar to all who were read to as a child. If not, Boheme provides a plot synopsis in its program.
More good news is the acoustics did not mar or diminish the musical experience. They kept it from being complete. And while “Hansel and Gretel” was performed in English, the use of supertitles would have added to the performance.
The positives are what matters here, and the positives are legion, especially as Boheme prepares for a production of one of the grandest works of all, Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” in March.
Every singer on the Kendall stage was colorful, interpretative, and grand. You didn’t have to hear every syllable to realize what a vocally adept ensemble Pucciatti assembled. It was evident in every note, every song, and every clever touch. This includes the work of the Princeton Boychoir, directed by Fred Means.
From the beginning, Kaitlyn Tierney (Hansel) and Kerri Lynn Slominski (Gretel) show how spirited and artistically sound Boheme’s “Hansel and Gretel” will be. Though each of the children has a complaint – Gretel needs new shoes, and Hansel is hungry. – they behave like kids and siblings, teasing each other about the dissatisfaction each displays, jostling each other, and showing their individual personalities, Gretel being given to some hyperactivity expressed in dance moves, Hansel being more stoic, only venturing fully into childhood frivolity when he thinks it suits a boy.
Tierney and Slominski sound as if they were created to sing as a pair. Harmony and counterpoint between them are perfect. Individual lines come through lyrically more than fully sung passages do, and it is in those moments, when the words are clear, that you hear how witty the singers can be.
In addition to singing, Tierney and Slominski are excellent in acting their parts. You believe them as siblings. You believe Hansel as a boy of action and Gretel as a girl whose high spirits ameliorate her desire for new shoes or a ready meal.
Hansel and Gretel’s poverty is known by their wishes for food or shoes. Their house looks well appointed, with a big refrigerator projected in one corner and a large stove in another, but the only sustenance is sight is a bottle of milk you know someone is bound to knock over.
Rebecca Sacks is fine as an angry mother who takes her problems out on her children and cries mightily, at least in terms of temper, over the split milk. Sacks earns points by showing her regret even as she scolds and especially after she sends Hansel and Gretel into the woods to find food.
The irony is the children’s father is about to arrive home with a bag of groceries. Kevin Patrick doesn’t play the father as drunk, a usual gambit in “Hansel and Gretel,” which makes it more moving when he shows concern for his children and tells his wife about the dangers of the woods, especially from The Witch.
Jacqueline Quirk is the perfect Sandman and Dew Fairy, one of whom puts Hansel and Gretel to sleep to calm their fears about the wood, the other of whom wakes them refreshed in the morning. Quirk conveys a benevolence that makes you immediately trust her character and know she has the children’s welfare in mind.
Alison Bolshoi takes a clever, roundabout way to her witchery. Pucciatti and costume designer Olga Turka do not dress her in black with a pointed hat. Nor does makeup designer Patricia Del Sordo give her warts or make her look ugly.
Bolshoi’s Witch looks more like a character from a Fellini movie. She is big, she is lively, she wears colorful, stylish clothes. She lulls the children into liking her, pretending to be their friend by feeding them candy and gingerbread. All the better to lure you to the oven where you’ll become one of my gingerbread children, Bolshoi’s likeable, fun-to-watch, fun-to-be-with.
Luckily, Hansel and Gretel know better, and those who know Grimm know her fate.
J. Matthew Root’s projections are fun from the outsized kitchen in the children’s house to woods that have owls and cats peering from the trees, to the Cape May confection that serves as the Witch’s house.
Olga Turka’s costumes are punk modern for the children, traditional for their parents and Quirk’s characters, and simultaneously glamorous and garish for the Witch.
Boheme Opera New Jersey concluded its performances of “Hansel and Gretel” at the Kendall Main Stage Theater of The College of New Jersey, 2000 Pennington Road, Ewing. It returns with a production of Giacomo Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly,” March 24 and 26. For more information, visit www.bohemeopera.org.
