The World's Most Famous Operas: Hansel and Gretel

The World's Most Famous Operas

Hansel and Gretel...

Music by: Engelbert Humperdinck (1854–1921)
Rendered into Arabic by: Samir Shikhani

An opera in three acts, adapted from the legends of the Brothers Grimm

First produced in Weimar in 1893

The Characters:
• Hansel, a boy
• Gretel, a girl
• Peter, their father
• Gertrude, their mother
• The Sandman
• The Dawn Fairy
• The Witch
• Angels, children and boys.

Time: imaginary.
Place: Germany.

Act One

Scene One: the house of Peter and Gertrude.

The first scene takes place inside a small, wretched house standing at the edge of the forest. It is the house of Peter the broom-maker and his wife Gertrude and their children Hansel and Gretel. The father and mother have gone to the market, leaving their children at home to do the work: Hansel making brooms and Gretel knitting wool; but, as children will, they spend most of their time singing and dancing. The song they sing is about the ducks that go barefoot because the cobbler cannot make them shoes.

In the midst of their merriment and din the mother returns, worn out and grieved to the last degree. She has not been able to earn her bread from her work, and there is nothing in the house to eat but a little milk in a small vessel. She flares up in anger at her children and scolds them for their laziness. And when she tries to push them, she strikes the milk jug and breaks it.

And so she sends them off to the forest to gather strawberries, sinks onto a chair, implores God to send food to her family, and then falls into a deep sleep. Soon Peter's voice is heard from outside, singing "Ra la la la, hunger is the most skillful of cooks." Luck has come to his aid: he has sold all his brooms and returned home carrying a basket full of victuals.

He asks after his children, and Gertrude answers that she broke the milk jug without meaning to and had to send them to the forest to gather strawberries. The husband cries out in alarm: "Do you not know that in the forest there is a wicked old witch? She rides her broomstick at midnight and goes hunting after children. And by day she makes them into cakes and biscuits which she bakes in her magic oven and devours." Terror runs through the parents' limbs, and they resolve to search for the little ones at once.

Scene Two: a treeless clearing in a forest.

The curtain falls for a few minutes while the orchestra plays the melody of "The Witch's Ride." When the curtain rises again, it rises upon a part of the forest just before sunset. Gretel is seated on a grassy hillock, plaiting a wreath of flowers and singing an old children's song that begins "There in the wood a little man stands alone." Hansel comes running, his basket filled with strawberries. The call of the cuckoo bird is heard, and the two little ones try to imitate it.

Night has begun to spread its banners over the place, and Hansel cannot find a way out of the forest. The darkness thickens little by little, and the fireflies flit among the brambles. The children are seized with fright when they realize that they must spend the night in the middle of the forest. They sink down together on the grassy knoll, and a gentle youth dressed in gray draws near and sings them a sweet, tender song as he scatters sand over their eyes from a little bag he carries. Soon he withdraws quietly; the brother and sister fall to their knees and chant the evening prayer: "When at night I go to my bed, fourteen angels stand guard over me." They wrap their arms around each other and sink into sleep in that pitch darkness.

Suddenly a gleaming light shines through the trees, and a vision appears showing the angels in their white robes standing upon a ladder joining earth and heaven; they descend one by one in stillness and gather around the two sleeping children. The "Children's Prayer" swells little by little, then dies away as the curtain falls softly.

Act Two
Scene: as the previous scene.

The first rays of dawn are creeping into the dark forest while Hansel and Gretel are still asleep. The Dawn Fairy comes and sprinkles them with drops of dew from a blue, bell-shaped plant. They wake delighted and gleefully mimic the twittering of the birds. Gretel tells the dream she had of the angels; but the heavenly ladder has vanished with the angels, and now the brother and sister discover something new they had never seen before. It is a strange little house made of gingerbread, surrounded and adorned by a fence of candy cakes.

Hansel steps forward shyly and timidly and pulls a piece of cake from the wall. From within a shrill voice is heard saying: "Nibble, nibble, little mouse — who is nibbling at my house?" The little ones are frightened at the first moment, but they are hungry, so they go on nibbling, and they do not see the old witch stealing up behind them and throwing a rope around Hansel's neck.

They try to flee, but she halts them with her magic wand. She pushes Hansel into a small cage at the side of the garden and bolts the door, saying to herself: "I shall eat Gretel first, for she is plump and delicious. As for Hansel, he is scrawny, and I intend that he should fatten."

The witch is a creature dreadful to behold: her chin sharp, her nose like a bird's beak, her hair thick, gray, and disheveled. She kindles the fire under the oven near the cage, then mounts a broomstick and soars on it through the air amid the pitch darkness that envelops the forest, to the strains of the music. Within a few moments she returns to earth, and the light comes back with her return as strangely as it had faded away.

Gretel is sent into the house to bring some raisins and almonds to feed Hansel. And as she comes out of the house carrying the sweets, her eye falls on a juniper branch resembling the old woman's magic wand. She realizes that she can work the magic herself. She murmurs the words of sorcery while waving the branch — and behold, Hansel is free; he crawls out of the cage and hides behind his sister.

The witch calls Gretel to the oven, saying: "Come, my little one, and see whether the gingerbread cakes are done. Stand on the tips of your toes and look inside the oven." Gretel pretends she has not understood what she is meant to do, saying slyly: "Will you not show me what you mean?" And as the witch opens the door and peers into the oven, the two little ones pounce on her from behind and push her into the oven and bolt the door, shouting in the fullness of their joy: "The wicked witch is dead!" — and they dance for delight. Soon a tremendous explosion is heard. The oven has burst and shattered to pieces; the house made of gingerbread cakes has tumbled down; the fence made of cake has vanished, and in its place stand a number of children who had been under a spell. Gretel waves her magic wand and restores them to life. They fly with joy, form a ring, and dance around Hansel and Gretel, singing: "The witch's power is broken."

Presently Peter and Gertrude appear and embrace their children with joy and gladness. Two boys go to the wreckage of the oven and come back with a huge cake they have picked up from among the sands. It is the old witch herself. The opera closes with the "Song of Thanksgiving," repeated by all: "When hardships descend upon us, God stretches out to us a helping hand!"