En direct, Vidéo: Rechercher des critiques de musique classique, opéra et ballet | Hansel et Gretel (Hänsel und Gretel)

En cette fin d’année, l’Opéra de Paris nous offre un spectacle réjouissant, plein de magie.

Kate Lindsey and Heidi Stober weave vocal magic in the latest Covent Garden revival of Humperdinck's box of delights. 

Jack Furness serves up an unappetising mess of Humperdinck's delicious masterpiece for Royal Academy Opera. 

A forgettable Hansel and Gretel is the worst offence of Antony McDonald’s leaden staging which returns to Covent Garden. 

A new production of Humperdinck's charming fairy-tale opera is always to be welcomed, particularly when performed with such enthusiasm by the students of the Royal College of Music.

Ein szenisch uneingelöstes Regiekonzept hinterließ nach dem Besuch der Märchenoper Hänsel und Gretel in Stuttgart keine Freude. Wenigstens wurde erfrischend gesungen und gespielt. 

A humorous and clever take on Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel in the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Good singing and acting in directors, Ahern and Lovett's interesting production. 

Leaving unresolved loose ends aside and viewed from a child’s perspective, Joel Ivany’s new Hänsel und Gretel at the Canadian Opera Company it’s a fun night at the opera.

Darkness sits alongside comedy in a new production of Humperdinck's delicious children's opera.

Mezzo-soprano Rachel Kelly and soprano Susanna Hurrell were the eponymous pair and, my, how they chewed the scenery.

Designer/director Antony McDonald treads a perfectly weighted path between light and dark of the fairytale; conductor Sebastian Weigle cooks up a Wagnerian storm; Michaela Schuster steals the show. A treat.

Andreas Baeslers Hänsel und Gretel holt die Märchenoper erfolgreich aus der Waldfinsternis ins bürgerliche Wohnzimmer des 19. Jahrhunderts

Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel has appeal for all ages, but Robert Carsen’s production is a different take on the beloved fairy tale.

Susan Graham had all the fun every mezzo-soprano witch, who can sing the role and disguise herself – when necessary – to look the part, deserves. 

A new production of Humperdinck's charming opera fails to enchant at the Erkel Theatre. 

Achim Freyer's production robs Humperdinck's fairy tale of heart and drama at the Lindenoper.

Bechtolf's seductively imaginative staging consists in a flat pack fairytale world full of surprises that delight like the contents of a pop up book.

Opera North's Hansel and Gretel at the Grand Theatre Leeds, directed by Edward Dick, is witty and perceptive, with some insights provide by Freudian psychanalysis

Vancouver Opera's compact, effective Hansel and Gretel satisfies adults and children alike.

After an absence of nearly a quarter-century, Humperdinck's evergreen returns to Seattle Opera in a winningly staged, musically sensitive production that looks beneath the fairy-tale surface.

A very creative reading – both scenically and musically – of Engelbert Humperdinck’s fairy tale opera Hänsel und Gretel for Theater an der Wien's final production of the season at the Kammeroper.

Die Staatsoper beschließt die 51. Saison der Humperdinck-Inszenierung von Steffen Tiggeler.

At Dutch National Opera, director Lotte de Beer’s reminds us who the Hänsels and Gretels of the 21st century are, juggling between harsh reality and heartening fairy tale in a spectacle that both delights and unsettles.

Schön statt schaurig: Christian Thielemann und das Staatsopernorchester liefern die erwartete Sensation, Adrian Noble inszeniert klassich mit Anklängen an Alice im Wunderland.

Vittorio Borrelli’s production of Hänsel und Gretel in Turin offers a refined mise-en-scène focusing on the tiny, playful and colourful aspects of the plot. 

The fantasy characters prove to be more interesting than the real ones in a Czech treatment of Engelbert Humperdinck's fairy-tale classic.

Hansel and Gretel is often treated as a children's opera, suitable for family viewing at Christmas, but as Richard Jones' production demonstrates, it is a good deal darker than that.

El Teatro Real recupera la brillante partitura de Humperdinck en una sólida función que no oculta la oscuridad de esta ópera infantil para adultos

The Met's holiday special, Hänsel und Gretel, is a treat not only for young children but for adults with its sophisticated music, excellent singing ensemble and orchestra playing, as well as its witty production.

An audience dominated by families enjoys Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel as the Deutsche Oper gives a demonstration of how to build the audiences of the future.

The Bayerische Staatsoper's production of Hänsel und Gretel is successful both musically and dramatically, but don't come expecting a charming fairy tale: This eerie staging is not for the very young or the faint of heart.

The story of Hansel and Gretel is at least 200 years old – the Brothers Grimm, those avid collectors of German folklore, first published it in 1812. And this well-loved tale’s longevity is something that Garsington Opera’s new production draws attention to from the outset. During the overture, a group of shadowy figures drop pages from a book, which Hansel and Gretel collect with glee.

“Nibble, nibble, like a mouse – who is nibbling at my house?” As a preschooler, I used to giggle with glee when I would hear this quote from the wicked witch in Hansel and Gretel. No doubt the story was dark, yet Eloise Wilkin’s delightful illustrations and the touching message of brother/sister love enticed me to return frequently to this beloved tale during nightly story time.

Humperdinck called his greatest hit a “Kinderstubenweihfestspiel” (a festival play for the consecration of the nursery) and the course of time has proven this joke appropriate: while Parsifal around Easter is the high point of the year for Wagnerians, Hänsel und Gretel at Christmastime is for everybody (including all those who claim they can’t stand Wagner and ignore the influence he had on Humpe

It has become customary to give recent productions of Hänsel and Gretel a modern and often murkier twist, perhaps mirroring the current surge in popularity of darker stories, and the appetite for Nordic noir in particular.

If you think that Hansel and Gretel is a gentle, happy piece of Christmas cheer, the first act of Lewis Reynolds's pub production for Open Door Opera might give you pause for thought. The children may be naughty, but they're genuinely starving, and the mother may be overbearingly harsh, but she is genuinely at her wits' end.

Hansel and Gretel, Humperdinck’s tuneful opera with its folk music themes was a good choice for the last opera of this academic year from the Opera School at the RSAMD in Glasgow. From the vignette on stage during the overture to Hansel and Gretel, it was very clear that we were in a very different place to the rural village next to the forest as famously told by the brothers Grimm.

This reviewer fully expected not to enjoy today’s matinee, having read the recent Guardian review and heard mixed reports from friends who saw it when it first came out.

Read our review of  Richard Jones' production of Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel und Gretel in its 2008 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.