MainStages Tour Spring 2023
Mid Wales Opera’s Fairy Tales season culminates in a new production of Humperdinck’s late nineteenth century classic Hansel and Gretel. Based on the Brothers Grimm’s fairytale, two children are banished to the enchanted woods by their hungry, frustrated parents. There, they wander into the clutches of a wicked witch determined to fatten them up and turn them into gingerbread. With only their cunning to protect them, how will they ever escape the oven?
This new production is sung in English with a cast of young professional singers, together with a chorus of children assembled locally for each theatre. Humperdinck’s miraculous score, performed by MWO’s partner orchestra Ensemble Cymru, is given a specially created new reduced orchestration by MWO’s Music Director Jonathan Lyness.
Sung in English
Music: Engelbert Humperdinck
Reduced Orchestration: Jonathan Lyness
Libretto: Adelheid Wette
Based on the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale Hansel and Gretel
English Translation: David Pountney
Conductor: Jonathan Lyness
Orchestra: Ensemble Cymru
Director/Designer: Richard Studer
Acts 1 and 2: 60 mins
INTERVAL
Act 3: 40 mins
SmallStages 2022
Puss in Boots
Mid Wales Opera’s fifth SmallStages tour kicks off our Fairy Tale season with Catalan composer Montsalvatge’s beautifully crafted one-act version of the familiar tale of ‘Puss in Boots’, El Gato con botas.
Richard Bratby, The Arts Desk
“if there’s one thing that this company does supremely well, it’s putting on an entertaining show….If you’re in the business of taking opera to Abermule and Llandinam, you either give your public a great night out or you fold.”