Opera's in the (gingerbread) house
By Michael C. Moore, Kitsap Sun
Bainbridge High School Theater, 9330 High School Road, Bainbridge Island
Through Dec. 9; 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays
Tickets: $20 to $13
Information: (206) 842-0472, ovationmtb.com
BAINBRIDGE ISLAND
"Opera" is not a dirty word.
At any rate, if you ever had that notion, Ron Milton would like to dispel it.
Still, the "O word" isn't employed to promote Ovation! Musical Theatre Bainbridge's holiday production of the classic fairy tale Hansel and Gretel, set to music and lyric by the German composer Engelbert Humperdinck.
"Beverly Sills brought opera to the masses, with that gentle way of hers," says Milton, Ovation!'s artistic director. "We wanted to do something similar — do a piece that's not intimidating, and make it fun for the audience."
Just don't call it an opera: "We try not to use the word," Milton says straight-faced.
As fairy tales go, the cautionary tale of two children who wander a little too far into the woods — most famously adapted by the Brothers Grimm — is pretty hairy stuff. The punishment in their case, after all, is to be cooked up and eaten by an old witch.
But Ovation!'s intent is not to throw scare tactics at younger audience members.
"We're not doing it dark. We want families to be able to enjoy it," Milton says. "We've done it so it's not so scary to children."
The show also is blocked with plenty of dancing and movement, to keep it from being the kind of static "park-and-bark" presentation that helped give oper — er, that "O" thing — a bad name in the first place.
Besides entertainment value, Milton says there's an educational component to Hansel and Gretel.
"The whole show is about children making right decisions," he says. "In the beginning, there are some wrong decisions made, and they find themselves in peril. As the story progresses, the decisions they make mean more and more."
Anyone, regardless of age (or tolerance to opera, for that matter) shouldbe able to appreciate the vocal prowess of Milton's cast, which includes Sharon Acton — so excellent in Ovation!'s Amahl and the Night Visitors last December — as the witch and Cornna Lapid-Munter, Ovation's musical director, as Gretel.
Other parts are filled just as capably, with recent Alaska emigre April Spain playing Hansel and veteran vocalists Robin Denis and Don Warkentin playing Hansel and Gretel's parents, the broom-maker and his wife.
Two younger Ovation! regulars, Kasey Harrison and Piper Milton, take the two other principal roles, the Sandman and the Dew Fairy, respectively.
"I definitely have the cast to do this," Milton says.
As always, Milton utilizes the talents of costumer Barbara Klingberg, who will make the story's fairies and gingerbread children come to eye-popping life.
The decision to make Hansel and Gretel this year's holiday offering had a lot to do with the success of "Amahl" last year, Milton says. That show, a charming and simple little operetta that Ovation! dressed up with sumptuous sets, costumes and voices, was a little off the beaten path for community theater pre-Christmas fare.
For one thing, the music is more complex and vocally demanding than many of the holiday-themed musicals available. But Munter's singers and the nine-piece chamber group under the direction of Jonathan Graber should be more than equal to the task.
Staging always is a challenge for Ovation!, which never moves onto the Bainbridge High School theater stage until the week before opening, which limits set and lighting options.
Milton says "Hansel and Gretel" poses even more than the usual challenges.
"Technically, I think it's the most difficult thing we've done," he says of the show's three sets — including the most famous gingerbread house in all of musical literature — which have to be moved on and off stage with a minimum of disruption to the flow of the story.
"We build all these sets in my garage and bring them over here, and you never know how they're going to look until you see them up there (on stage)," he continues. "You just hope everything's going to work, and this is working really well."
Besides just being what Milton calls a "fine, fun Christmas show," Hansel and Gretel serves as a precursor of sorts to Ovation's summer 2008 production of Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods, an ingenious mish-mash of beloved fairy-tale stories and characters.
No comments:
Post a Comment