Every December the Opera Program of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music sets aside a day to “give back to the general community” with a “Family Opera” production. This involves staging a “condensed version” of a familiar opera in a form that will appeal to “children of all ages” (as Program Director Rick Harrell has put it). For the second year running, this year’s opera was Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel (in Constance Bache’s English translation of Adelheid Wette’s libretto). Harrell introduced a new staging as a change from last year’s production by Heather Mathews; but, as was the case last year, all music was performed from the piano by Assistant Music Director Darryl Cooper. The entire production lasted approximately one hour with one performance at 1 PM (which concluded about an hour ago) and another to take place at 4 PM.
Harrell has a real gift for low humor, and he was not afraid to exercise it. As a result there were virtually no slow moments in the production, and many of the jokes could appeal to different senses of humor of differing ages. Whether it was Stage Director Michael Mohammed's idea for the bit parts (particularly the Dew Fairy) to be scene-stealers or Harrell just trains all his students to make the most of whatever they do, however small it may be, there was no shortage of shameless gags intruding upon the foreground from bits of the action usually assumed to lie less conspicuously in the background.
From the musical point of view, the opera is often promoted as a great “first taste” for beginners because so many of the themes are based on folk songs. However, these were songs familiar to nineteenth-century Germany, which probably do not ring on contemporary San Francisco ears with quite the same effect. More important is that the condensation of the score moves the listener from one episode to the next at a comfortable pace, hopefully cultivating an interest among those getting their first exposure to see how music can play a key role in a storytelling experience.
More experienced listeners are likely to appreciate some of the details of the opera’s pedigree. It was first performed in Weimar in 1893 under the baton of Richard Strauss. The following year it received its premiere performance in Hamburg with Gustav Mahler conducting. While the emphasis of the score may have been on folk sources, Humperdinck’s “connecting tissue” often comes up with an uncanny inventiveness that draws upon the best of both Richard Wagner and Johannes Brahms, often leaving the listener to wonder, “Did I just hear what I thought I heard?” One could easily imagine that Mahler could have had a lot of fun conducting this music; and, for all we know, Humperdinck’s approach to the darker side of this fairy tale had an impact on how Mahler decided to pursue the folk poetry of the Des Knaben Wunderhorn anthology (a collection he already knew before his first experience with conducting Humperdinck’s opera).
Thus, this “Family Opera” production has resulted in an offering that provides something for everyone without condescending to anyone. That makes for a fine line to walk, but Harrell and his colleagues got to work with a particularly skilled and willing crew of students. With events like this there is no doubting the value of the Conservatory to the general community.
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