A Fairy Opera in Three Acts
The Text by ADELHEID WETTE
The Music by HUMPERDINK
THIS fairy tale Opera by Humperdinek, to a story written by his sister, makes use, in the most skilful and fascinating way, of actual German Folk tunes, and its melodies throughout are of the simplest and most immediately pleasing order. The Overture begins with a melody of the Children's Evening Prayer. Then there breaks in the stirring music of the witch, and her gingerbread house,the merry-making of the children is heard, too, and the song of thanksgiving at their deliverance from the witch's spell; but the music of the Prayer; dominates most of the Overture, and it is welded with the other tunes in the most cunning way.
Tho two children begin the first Act by themselves, in their humble home; they are romping and singing when their mother returns to find them neglecting the tasks she had set them. She packs them off to the wood to gather berries, and no sooner have they gone, than the father comes home; he has had a lucky day selling his brooms. When he hears where the children are, he is horrified, and, soon makes his wife share in his terror; a witch, he tells her, lives in the wood, who eats little children. They rush off together in search of Hansel and Gretel. Act II is in the wood where the children have lost their way. In answer to their prayer, as they lie down to sleep, angels come down from on high to guard them. In the third Act we meet the witch, and hear of her enchantments. But Hansel's courage and Gretel's nimble wits are too much for her, and in the end she is baked in her own oven, and the story ends happily; the children are found by their father and mother, and their thanksgiving is joined in by all the other little ones they have released by breaking tho witch's spell.