Engelbert Humperdinck Hänsel Gretel

Since its premiere in 1893 Engelbert Humperdincks fairytale opera Hansel and Gretel has awakened a passion for music theatre in generations of children Even his great contemporaries such as Richard Strauss Gustav Mahler or Johannes Brahms were delighted by this work It is the successful combination of seemingly folkloric simplicity and the complex musical language of Wagners direct successor of simple melody and artful orchestration and of sociocritical realism and atmospheric magic that makes the music to the Brothers Grimms famous story so captivating And so the Vienna State Operas production speaks to both children and adults alike leading through wondrous projections of a magic lantern into the middle of the fairytale storyline