OPERA NORTH are in town again next week, with three very
different shows, all based on fairytales.
Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel And Gretel opens the series at
The Lowry on Wednesday (repeated on Saturday March 11). Yes, the composer
really is Engelbert Humperdinck – one of the late 19th century’s
most gifted Romantic masters, not the 1960s crooner whose name was Gerry Dorsey
before he borrowed the German monicker …
Humperdinck tells the traditional story with all the
richness of Wagnerian drama, in one of the most enchanting takes on a
children’s story ever written. It includes at least two numbers you may know
already – one, as ‘Brother, come and dance with me’, was sung by the Manchester
Schoolchildren’s Choir on the B-side of their 1929 hit record, Nymphs And
Shepherds; and the other is the famous Evening Prayer (‘When at night I go to
sleep’).
Top north west-born opera soprano Susan Bullock CBE is
singing the roles of the Witch and the children’s Mother, and the young ones themselves
are Opera North favourites Katie Bray and Fflur Wyn.
Rossini’s Cinderella – at The Lowry on Thursday and repeated
as a matinee on Saturday March 11) – is the most traditional of the operas, if
bel canto singing is what you go for. It’s not quite the panto story as we know
it these days, but closer to the tale which has existed in most European
cultures for centuries.
And
it’s definitely a comedy in this version., which opens
with Cinderella scrubbing the floor of a ballroom dancing school. Directed
by multi-talented director and choreographer, Aletta Collins, it features Canadian mezzo-soprano Wallis Giunta as Cinderella and
South African tenor Sunnyboy
Dladla as her prince, Don Ramiro. Manchester-trained favourite Henry Waddington is Don Magnifico.
The
third opera is The Snow Maiden, by Rimsky-Korsakov – getting its first professional
English production for over 60 years and in Salford on March 10. Directed by John Fulljames, the poignant Russian folk tale has Irish
soprano Aoife Miskelly making
her Opera North debut in the title role.
There’s
a parallel to Andersen’s The Snow Queen and, of course, to Disney’s Frozen in
the story – the heroine wants nothing more than to live amongst humans, but she
hides a tragic secret: her heart is made of ice and, if she falls in love, it
will melt.
The music includes one of Rimsky-Korsakov’s most famous
orchestral pieces, the Dance Of The Clowns.
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