Based on the Grimms’ fairy tale, Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel is both wonderfully unsettling and moving, a story of poverty, magic and triumph over adversity. Director Bill Bankes-Jones (Artistic Director of Tête à Tête) takes the opera back to its roots, revealing a macabre tale full of psychological depth and enchantment.

Hansel and Gretel are getting under their mother’s feet and, at the end of her tether, she sends them into the woods to collect strawberries. As darkness falls, they realise they are lost. Terrified, they spend the night on the forest floor. Next morning, to their amazement, they discover a house made of gingerbread and are soon helping themselves, unaware that they are falling straight into a trap set by the fabled Wicked Witch…

Humperdinck’s rich score encompasses everything from luscious Wagnerian-inspired orchestration to touching tunes derived from traditional folk melodies. Kai Rüütel, a recent graduate of the Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House, sings Hansel, and Irish soprano Ailish Tynan is Gretel, fresh from singing the role at Covent Garden. Leah-Marian Jones (Marcellina in 2010’s The Marriage of Figaro) is the Witch.

New translation by Bill Bankes-Jones.