`HANSEL AND GRETEL' MAGIC L.A. OPERA SINGS A VERY DIFFERENT SONG OF THE FOREST.Byline: Sandra Barrera Staff Writer Douglas Fitch has created a ``Hansel han·sel n. & v. Variant of handsel. and Gretel'' that's part paint-by-number artwork, part puppet show. When asked to direct and design the L.A. Opera production, opening today at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion is one of the halls in the Los Angeles Music Center (which is one of the three largest performing arts centers in the United States). The Music Center's other halls include the Mark Taper Forum, Ahmanson Theatre, and Walt Disney Concert Hall. , Fitch -- a 46-year-old New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of visual artist who just spent the summer at Tanglewood Music Festival The Tanglewood Music Festival is the oldest music festival in the United States. It is held every summer on the Tanglewood estate in Lenox, Massachusetts in the Berkshire Hills in western Massachusetts. staging a triple-bill -- says his mind immediately drifted toward his longtime fascination with paint-by-number kits. It was from there that the unknown world of the fairy tale fairy tale Simple narrative typically of folk origin dealing with supernatural beings. Fairy tales may be written or told for the amusement of children or may have a more sophisticated narrative containing supernatural or obviously improbable events, scenes, and personages suggested itself. ``If you cut out a tree of a paint-by-number painting you have a strange hole, and those strange shapes are actually very abstract sculptures,'' he says. ``And when you go deeper into the woods I decided, well, what happens when you go deeper into a paint-by-number painting? It magnifies, and it becomes camouflauge -- and the camouflauge is also very interesting when you think about the significance of camouflauge. You're trying to hide yourself in the forest.'' More than trees This ``metaforest,'' as Fitch likes to call it, is the backdrop that cracks away to reveal his new, unconventional English opera English Opera may refer to:
``Hansel and Gretel'' opens with a new overture set to words. The song helps to introduce the story of why the children wander deep in the woods and how they will soon encounter a world of witches, gnomes Gnomes The 15-year pass-through securities offered under Freddie Mac's cash program. Notes: Investors sell their mortgages through Freddie Mac's cash program. The 15-year mortgages sold to Freddie Mac form the pool of mortgages that back the securities referred to as and other pagan-like creatures that recall Maurice Sendak's ``Where the Wild Things Are.'' This isn't the way it plays out in the German opera that was written in 1890 as a song cycle by Adelheid Wette and set to the rich, sophisticated music of her brother, Engelbert Humperdinck (the composer, not the romantic singer). In that version, the children get lost while picking strawberries into the night. After singing their ``Evening Prayer,'' they fall asleep with a host of angels watching over them. ``The forest is not a particularly Judeo- Christian mileu,'' says librettist li·bret·tist n. The author of a libretto. Noun 1. librettist - author of words to be set to music in an opera or operetta author, writer - writes (books or stories or articles or the like) professionally (for pay) Richard Sparks Richard Sparks b. 29 August 1950, American choral conductor Education: BM, University of Washington, 1976; MM in Choral Conducting, University of Washington, 1980; DMA in Choral Conducting, College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati, 1997 , who wrote the new translation for the L.A. Opera production. ``It's more pagan, it's more the ancient spirits of the forest, it's more wild, it's more Germanic, Oden and Thor and all those characters creeping about in there.'' Inspired by Sparks' vision that takes its cue from the Grimm Brothers' telling, Fitch -- his last staging of ``Hansel and Gretel'' was a family puppet show about campers that he put on as a kid -- widened his scope and looked to different cultures for ideas. ``The music is so powerful and when you start dreaming of imagery that will be suitable for that, you can get ambitious about it,'' he says. Angels and animals The creatures were ultimately inspired by masks of the indigenous Yupik people that Fitch says depict animals with a human element inside them ``because everything that moves is really a human and everything that doesn't is an element. ``So a dolphin splits open and you have a human face inside of it or you'll find a seal with human hands,'' he continues. ``I was really inspired by this stuff and thought, well, those are my angels.'' Angels with potent, glowing eyes, no doubt. ``I'm very happy about their eyes,'' he says. ``The eyes are actually photographs of human eyes moving around on translucent surfaces and lit from behind so they really have that quality of a human inside some spirit.'' Kanyova describes being lit up by all those eyes as the music swells during the ``Evening Prayer'' as ``very emotional.'' Schaufer agrees. ``Maria and I are always up there with a few tears in our eyes,'' says the mezzo mez·zo n. pl. mez·zos A mezzo-soprano. mezzo Adverb Music moderately; quite: mezzo-forte Noun pl -zos . ``The music is just glorious. Second of all, you're surrounded by these wonderful images of animals coming to protect them through the night and, well, it's the best of magic, really.'' Sandra Barrera, (818) 713-3728 sandra.barrera@dailynews.com HANSEL AND GRETEL Hansel and Gretel fattened up for child-eating witch. [Ger. Fairy Tale: Grimm, 56] See : Cannibalism Hansel and Gretel woodcutter’s children barely escape witch. [Ger. Fairy Tale: Grimm, 56] See : Escape Where: Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. . When: 2 p.m. today, Nov. 26, Dec. 9 and 17; 7:30 p.m. Nov. 29, Dec. 2, 6 and 14. Tickets: $30 to $220. (213) 972-8001. www.LAOpera.com. CAPTION(S): photo Photo: Hansel and Gretel, played by Lucy Schaufer and Maria Kanyova, are wary of the ``metaforest'' of fanciful plants and creatures created by visual artist Douglas Fitch for the new L.A. Opera production. |
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