There's no way not to love Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel. It's a perfect little Wagner opera with a fairytale instead of a nationalistic vision at its core. And there's also no way not to love LA Opera's revival of its 2006 production. Each member of the cast inhabited their character with obvious relish and great broad acting skills, the broadest of which was The Witch, Susan Graham, who had all the fun every mezzo-soprano witch, who can sing the role and disguise herself – when necessary – to look the part, deserves.
Sasha Cooke and Liv Redpath as the two kids were cute as buttons and once they got off the steeply raked porch outside their home you could hear just how brilliantly each of them sang. Director and designer Doug Fitch gave them a lot of business to do on a stage with at least 14 animals, little mounds of grass, and giant glowing, growing mushrooms; they responded with more than enough voice and charisma to burn. The only mishap was fattening Hansel by attaching his head to a giant inflatable eggplant which not only didn't completely unfold but also put Cooke again too far back on stage. (Don't worry. At the end he made a complete recovery.)
Aside from a multi-media appearance at the beginning which blew up her scowling face and sacred a little kid in the audience, Melody Moore's Mother turned out to be not only a pretty decent sort but also to have a particularly warm rich, warm soprano. Craig Colclough's Father was a standout, with his rustic energy and wonderfully clear diction. Both Taylor Raven's Sandman and Sarah Vautuor's Dew Fairy dispensed magical dust from 10-foot perches; Fitch even employed a body double to perform a gymnastic tumbling feat to startling effect.