OnStage: Back to the forest

Maybe it's the gingerbread house, or the story's redemptive theme, its childlike spirit and its expression of victory over evil. Or maybe the identification with Christmas was indelibly stamped on "Hansel and Gretel" when it was first performed on Dec. 23, 1893.

"I don't think I can," said Robert Neu when asked to explain why this opera based on the Grimm Brothers fairy tale has become holiday fare. "When I lived in New York, I know that for years the Met did a Christmas Eve performance for a number of years and it was a hot ticket."

The Met is not alone. BBC-TV and Covent Garden in England have signature holiday productions of "Hansel and Gretel," too. Not to mention the Minnesota Orchestra.

Neu is directing a semistaged version of Engelbert Humperdinck's classic for the orchestra this weekend. First performed in 2005 and again in 2006, the production is back after a two-year hiatus. Jennifer Baldwin Peden sings the role of Gretel and Christina Baldwin is Hansel (a role written for a mezzo). Vera Mariner returns as the witch who licks her chops at the prospect of two fleshy children stumbling upon her edible cottage.

Sarah Hicks will direct the orchestra, the Minnesota Boychoir will sing and puppeteers from In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre will create magic with their oversized creations. The puppets come alive as creatures of the forest, as wildlife and -- when Hansel and Gretel sing the famous evening prayer -- as 14 giant angels.

"You can almost hear the air being sucked out of the room at that moment because everyone is taking a breath in awe," said Christina.

The Baldwins have their own history with "Hansel and Gretel," Christmas or not. They recall it as the first opera they ever attended, at Northrop Auditorium in the late 1970s. Jennifer later sang scenes when she attended opera camp as a teenager. She said she has to be careful on occasion because that version still pops into her head.

"I don't want to sound corny," she said, "because it's not cheesy material at all, but this show really gets me sentimentally and emotionally invested. When we're backstage, I get this tingle of excitement and I'm high-fiving with her [Christina]. We're doing Humperdinck with the Minnesota Orchestra. We've arrived!"

One-hit wonder

Humperdinck owes his fame to two entities: the "Hansel and Gretel" opera and singer Arnold Dorsey (the "other" Engelbert Humperdinck, who competed with Tom Jones for women's passions in the 1960s and '70s).

The "real" Humperdinck was more a product of his connections than his compositional output. Richard Wagner liked him and gave him a seat at the table at Bayreuth. In 1890, Humperdinck's sister, Adelheid Wette, asked him to compose music for four children's songs she had written, based on "Hansel and Gretel."

Humperdinck liked what he'd crafted, sought feedback and determined he'd stitch together a singspiel (literally "song play"). More work fleshed out the piece to a full-blown opera, and Richard Strauss himself agreed to conduct the premiere in Weimar, Germany. Audiences greeted it as a masterpiece. Two songs in particular became classics for generations to come. In the first act, Gretel asks Hansel to prance about ("Brother, come and dance with me"). And when the children face a dark night in the forest, they sing the gorgeous evening prayer.

While the piece is based on the children's folk tale, the opera, with its lush, romantic sound, is quite adult.

"The nice thing about this opera is that it's deceptively simple," said Jennifer. "But there are some complex harmonic features that feed the adult sense."

Family favorite

The Baldwins agreed almost two years ago to revive their performances ("We turned down gigs for this," Jennifer said). In addition to three full performances this weekend, a trimmed, one-hour version will be performed next week for school audiences and then again for two shows on Dec. 5.

As for the timing, Christina noted that "Hansel and Gretel" is not a show for the "holiday in italics," but it carries many of the same touchstones within its message and experience as holidays do. Fairy tales have the same eternal qualities as religious holidays and they gather families together for a special occasion.

Even though it has been a couple of years, the music is still largely in their heads, they said. Jennifer said her biggest problem is not remembering "Hansel and Gretel." "I'm trying to get this Bach cantata that we sang last weekend out of my head," she said.

Christina's head is cluttered with the detritus of too many years watching 1980s TV, she said. While Jennifer worries that she might slip into the "Hansel and Gretel" she sang at opera camp, Christina worries about the theme song to "The Facts of Life."

Nothing Christmasy there.

Graydon Royce • 612-673-7299