HANSEL AND GRETEL.

“Hansel and Gretel,” a fairy opera in three acts, words by Adelheid Wette, was first produced in Germany in 1894.  In January, 1895, it was performed in London by the Royal Carl Rosa Opera Company, rendered into English by Constance Bache; and in the fall of the same year it had its first representation in New York, at Daly’s Theatre, with the following cast:—­

PETER, a broom-maker       Mr. JACQUES BARS. 
GERTRUDE, his wife         Miss ALICE GORDON. 
THE WITCH                  Miss LOUISE MEISSLINGER. 
HANSEL                     Miss MARIE ELBA. 
GRETEL                     Miss JEANNE DOUSTE.
SANDMAN, the Sleep Fairy   Miss CECILE BRANI. 
DEWMAN, the Dawn Fairy     Miss EDITH JOHNSTON.

The story is taken from one of Grimm’s well-known fairy tales, and the text was written by the composer’s sister, Adelheid Wette.  It was Frau Wette’s intention to arrange the story in dramatic form for the amusement of her children, her brother lending his co-operation by writing a few little melodies, of a simple nature, to accompany the performance.  When he had read it, however, the story took his fancy, and its dramatic possibilities so appealed to him that he determined to give it an operatic setting with full orchestral score, and thus placed it in the higher sphere of world performance by an art which not alone reveals the highest type of genial German sentimentality, but, curiously enough, applied to this simple little story of angels, witches, and the two babes in the woods the same musical methods which Wagner has employed in telling the stories of gods and demigods.  Perhaps its highest praise was sounded by Siegfried Wagner, son of Richard Wagner, who declared that “Hansel and Gretel” was the most important German opera since “Parsifal,” notwithstanding its childishness and simplicity.

After a beautifully instrumented prelude, which has already become a favorite concert piece, the curtain rises upon the home of Peter, the broom-maker.  The parents are away seeking for food, and Hansel and Gretel have been left in the cottage with instructions to knit and make brooms.  There is a charming dialogue between the two children, beginning with a doleful lament over their poverty, and ending with an outburst of childish hilarity in song and dancing,—­a veritable romp in music,—­which is suddenly interrupted by the return of Gertrude, the mother, empty-handed, who chides them for their behavior, and in her anger upsets a jug of milk which was the only hope of supper in the house.  With an energetic outburst of recitative she sends them into the forest, telling them not to return until they have filled their basket with strawberries.  After lamenting her loss, and mourning over her many troubles, she falls asleep, but is awakened by the return of Peter, who has been more fortunate, and has brought home some provisions.  A rollicking scene ensues, but suddenly he misses the children, and breaks out in a fit of rage when he is informed that they have gone into the forest.  To the accompaniment of most gruesome and characteristic music he tells his wife of the witch who haunts the woods, and who, living in a honey-cake house, entices little children to it, bakes them into gingerbread in her oven, and then devours them.