‘Hansel and Gretel’ Opens the Door to Opera

What “The Nutcracker” is to first-time ballet-goers of tender years, “Hansel and Gretel” is to young opera novices: For about 100 years, the Engelbert Humperdinck masterpiece, filled with magic and chills, Wagnerian majesty, fairy tale and folk charm, has given countless children an eye-popping introduction to opera.

The Los Angeles Music Center Opera’s lavish first production of the classic, performed in English and set for six performances at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion beginning Friday, is making every effort to continue that tradition.

“I love it,” said conductor Andrew Litton. “I heard it for the first time when I was 7. . . . It still has meaning to me this many years later.”

Litton, principal conductor and artistic adviser of England’s Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, is making his Music Center Opera debut with the Humperdinck work. “One of the interesting stigmas that this piece has,” he noted, “is that people say it’s a kiddie opera. But it’s not. It’s a very serious opera that happens to be written for kids. If they like this, they’ll like many other things. . . . Musically, it’s just as serious as anything else you can mention.”

Parents who worry about whether children will like it, shouldn’t. “Even the special effects on stage are enough to capture the attentions of the most impatient little soul,” Litton said. “And the expectation of meeting the witch is enough to keep everyone excited.

“It’s very traditional, which I think is wonderful, but inventive too. The audience is in for a real treat visually.”

“We just did the ‘Hansel and Gretel’ we all dreamed about seeing,” enthused Michael Yeargan, the Yale Repertory resident designer who originally created the sets for the Dallas Opera production in 1991. That dream includes a two-story fantasy gingerbread house that “opens up and it’s an image of a haunted house,” trees that “slide open and reveal things” and “a 30-foot, golden staircase for the angels to come down.”

It was director John Copley who set the tone, said Yeargan, because Copley, who staged the Dallas production and is staging it again in Los Angeles, wanted the look to be “luscious and fun and wonderful.”

Copley said: “You have a responsibility for children coming to the opera to make them love it. Like all opera, you can do it any sort of way, but for me it’s a wonderful design, very magical.”

Copley professes delight in the cast as well. It includes respected veteran Swedish tenor Ragnar Ulfung as the Witch, Paula Rasmussen alternating with Stephanie Vlahos as Hansel and Karen Beardsley alternating with Dale Franzen as Gretel.

“You always have lovely people in ‘Hansel and Gretel,’ ” Copley said, “because it’s such a human and touching piece. There are no flying egos, which is a nice change,” he joked.

Ulfung, whose first trip to Los Angeles was “in ’68 with Stravinsky himself” (in Stravinsky’s “Rake’s Progress”), relishes his role in this “door-opener for opera-goers. I have been a lady before” on stage, he said, “but this is the first time I am a witch.” Ulfung promises to “scare,” but to be “a little funny and a little warm” too.

“I’ve been involved in three or four productions (of “Hansel and Gretel”) in my time in opera,” said Music Center Opera General Director Peter Hemmings, “and I have always found the piece excites children and moves adults.

“In my view, the piece appeals on various levels. Children--and I’m a father of five--like a bit of frisson, they enjoy being frightened by witches, and at the same time, adults enjoy it for other reasons, including the fact that most adults like to remember their childhood. Also, the piece is clearly derived from Wagner . . . and it is a collection of wonderful tunes.”

Other operas with child appeal, Hemmings suggested, include “ ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ by Maurice Sendak and Oliver Knussen, Rossini’s ‘Cinderella,’ Mozart’s ‘Cosi fan Tutte’ . . . and Puccini’s ‘Madama Butterfly.’ ”

Copley, tongue-in-cheek, warned that parents should be judicious, however. “A child of 14 or 15 going to ‘Lohengrin’ for the first time” might have a problem. “It’s terribly long and involved . . . and there’s a lot of usually fat people singing for a long time,” he said. “That can be deeply off-putting. I know someone who hates opera because he was taken at 12 to ‘The Flying Dutchman.’ ”

Llewellyn Crain, the Music Center Opera’s manager of education and community programs, wrote the educational materials that are preparing some 15,000 Los Angeles County-area 4th to 6th graders to see school matinees of the production. She has some suggestions for parents who want to give their own children an idea of what to expect.

“Talk about what an opera is, go over the story with them. You might find a recording of the opera in English at the library, or you can rent a wonderful video of it done by the Metropolitan Opera.”

For a nominal fee, parents can request a copy of the educational booklet that schools received from the Music Center about the opera, by calling Crain at (213) 972-7219.

“Hansel and Gretel,” Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., Friday through June 21, $15-$60; (213) 480-3232, (213) 972-7211.