Humperdinck: Hansel and Gretel

I was very excited to be going on my first BBCM outing. Hansel and Gretel is not only a familiar story to me but we had been singing a small extract from it in class. There was no need for stage settings; the flow of the music and the engaging soloists kept me involved to the end. I really enjoyed the witch (Anne Schwanewilms) with her lovely voice and I quite jumped with the explosion of sound when she and her oven were destroyed. My favourite parts of the music were the punctuated sounds that rode on top of the swell of music such as the cymbals and horns. I even heard a cuckoo. And, we did clap our hands and stamp our feet!

Hannah Meehan, age 7 (supported by mother Nicola)

Postscript by Agnes Kory:

Altogether 25 of us (including very well behaved BBCM toddler class pupils Hermione and Hollie) attended the LSO performances of Hansel and Gretel on successive nights of 30th November and 1st December. These performances were extraordinary inasmuch as there was nothing wrong with them. It is a very rare occurrence (if at all) when everything is in place in an opera performance or in a symphony concert using large forces. These performances were advertised as concert performances (of the opera Hansel and Gretel) but the singers wore appropriate costumes and acted with great skill and conviction: I could not help thinking that these performances should have been made compulsory watching for a large number of famous opera directors. All 5 solo singers delivered high quality singing. I could not determine whether conductor Richard Hickox followed his excellent team of singers or the other way round but beauty was definitely with us. Our toddlers and 1st year students could not have heard a better rendering of their BBCM song 'With my hand I clap, clap, clap; With my feet I stamp, stamp, stamp'. Thank you, LSO!

(solo singers: Laura Claycomb, Pamela Helen Stephen, Anne Schwanewilms, Dietrich Henschel and Susan Gritton)