‘Hansel and Gretel’ filled with local talent
It’s Engelbert Humperdinck’s greatest hit, and it will be performed four times, beginning Friday.
No. Not that Engelbert Humperdinck. The singer, who first hit the charts with “Release Me,” was born Arnold George Dorsey and took his stage name from the composer whose master work, the classic opera “Hansel and Gretel.”
It is that hit that will be performed four times by Spokane Opera at the Central Valley Performing Arts Center at Central Valley High School, Friday, May 5, 11 and 12. Each performance will begin at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets for all for performances are available through TicketsWest (1-800-325-SEAT). Seats are $35, $26 and $18 for adults. Student tickets are $13 and children under 12 are $8.
This Spokane Opera production will feature several local voices in key roles.
Two key members of the cast are products of local high schools and the majority of the cast has a local connection.
“Jessica Bowers, who will sing the role of Hansel, went to Lewis and Clark High School,” Spokane Opera executive director Bill Graham said. “She graduated from Whitworth College and got her master’s degree at the New England Conservatory.
Heather Peterson, who plays both the witch and the mother, currently lives in Boston but grew up just south of Tacoma and graduated from Whitworth and also got her master’s from the New England Conservatory.
Heather Holzapfel (Gretel) moved here recently with her husband, who was transferred here – and we consider her a local artist, now. Daniel Oakden (singing the role of the father) now lives in Seattle, but he’s a graduate of Ferris High School.”
The production will be conducted by maestro Dean Williamson and will feature Janet Wilder’s choreography for Ballet Spokane.
Humperdinck described “Hansel and Gretel” as “a fairy opera,” and he was moved to write it by his sister, Adelheid Wette, who first asked him to write music for songs she had written for her children based on the Grimm’s Fairy Tale. The full opera debuted in Weimar, Germany Dec. 23, 1893, and it is regularly performed at Christmastime.
“Hansel and Gretel” is one of the most performed operas in the world and was the first opera broadcast on radio from the Metropolitan Opera on Christmas Day, 1931.
“People may not realize this, but the first conductor for this opera was Richard Strauss,” Graham said. “He called it one of the great masterpieces of late 19th century German opera.”
In this performance, Peterson, as the witch, will actually fly, adding to the grandeur of the production.
“This is just a great opportunity to introduce children to opera,” Graham said. “First of all, they already know the story, hopefully. And this production is sung in English, which makes it much more approachable for first-time audiences.
“And I think people will be surprised at how much of the music they already know. They just don’t know that it comes from an opera.”