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April 10, 2005
Hänsel and Gretel in Stirling
Hänsel and Gretel was performed in Stirling on 9 April 05 as the first leg of a ‘Scottish Opera on Tour’ production, bound for Aberdeen, Forfar, Ayr, Kelso, Inverness, Portree and Wick.
For touring requirements, the conductor Derek Clark has written a new, reduced version of the score for a 19-piece orchestra of ‘Soloists of the Orchestra of Scottish Opera’ (for the record: two violins, two violas, two celli, one double bass, one flute/piccolo, one oboe/cor anglais, one clarinet, one clarinet/bass clarinet, one bassoon, 2 horns, one trumpet, one trombone, one timpani, one percussion, and one harp).
I was wondering whether the diluted orchestration would sound disappointing in the theatre, but it didn’t. It was too good in fact, as the music in the reverberant acoustic (of the 872-seat Albert Halls/Main Hall) effectively overpowered the stage business. While it’s difficult to get the right balance when you are performing in a series of different venues, Derek Clark might be advised to adopt the practice (of R Strauss? Furtwängler?) of handing the baton to an assistant and walking around to hear how everything sounds from different parts of the auditorium.
None of the cast - Jennifer Johnston as Hansel, Claire Wild as Gretel, Miranda Keys as both the mother and the witch and Roland Wood as the father - were able to project musically or dramatically much beyond the orchestra, though Rebecca Bottone was charming as the Sandman and the Dew Fairy.
The production was confusing with lots of shrine-like white boxes around the stage, which eventually were opened up to form the witch’s gingerbread house, but there were amusing effects with puppets, broomsticks etc.
One of the reasons for staging this opera was to involve local children - in this case 15 of them - but they were controlled, static and limited in what they were allowed to do. Letting them loose on the production (rather like the 1999 Corsaro/Sendak Zurich production) would have made it more fun.
The hall was only about three-quarters full and contained few children. Perhaps it would be better to put it on at Christmas?
Posted by Simon Holledge at April 10, 2005 06:23 PM
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