Hansel and Gretel review – vivacious staging of Humperdinck’s benign fairytale

Royal Opera House, London
Mark Wigglesworth’s conducting and the playing of the ROH orchestra are top drawer, with Antony McDonald’s production reclaiming the innocence in the dark Grimm tale

There are two particularly good reasons not to miss the Royal Opera’s Christmas revival of its 2018 production of Hansel and Gretel. Both are musical. Mark Wigglesworth’s conducting, and the playing of the Royal Opera House orchestra, each come out of the top drawer.

Wigglesworth possesses a symphonic sense of line that allows Humperdinck’s benign score to unfold as it should. But he also has a theatrical instinct for when to push on and when to step back. He brings out the music’s Mahlerian qualities as well its Wagnerian and Brahmsian ones. He is the star of the show. The ROH orchestra played superbly for him. In the hands of its leader Magnus Johnston, one violin phrase that otherwise you might barely notice seems to float in the air like a benediction.

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