Humperdinck's Hansel Und Gretel (in English) at the Lyric Opera San Diego (13 November 2009)

Freddie Kruger may patrol Elm Street while Jason the deadless hockey-head wanders around looking for his next axe cushion on Friday night (the 13th, did you notice?), but at the Lyric Opera San Diego in North Park they bake a baritone witch into a giant yummy gingerbread cake instead.

While we have to wait until January for the San Diego Opera's season to start to catch the grander drama of Puccini, Gounod, and Verdi, the Lyric Opera at Birch North Park Theater at the southeast corner of University Avenue and 29th Street is, right now, putting on very entertaining performances of Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel (sung in translated English). It is a smaller scale production manned by mostly local artists who put their heart and soul into giving you your money's worth of entertainment and neighborly atmosphere.

The stage director, J. Sherwood Montgomery, literally utilizes every inch of the intimate Fischer Family Auditorium in his effort to involve the audience into the show. Not only do the performers play up their role to the opera goers, the Father and the Mother (played by stentorian voiced Scott Gregory and opera veteran Pamela Porter Arnold) actually get on the audience's side of the orchestra pit a few times during the show.

The story is, of course, taken from a famous tale of the Brothers Grimm. Young Hansel and Gretel are sent by their mother into the forest to gather strawberries. Finding themselves lost in the unfamiliar surroundings, they spend the night and woke up hungry to find a most mouth-watering-ly lovely cottage made of gingerbread and sweets. Alas, the wicked witch who owns the house doesn't take to kindly to having her abode being nibbled off by the children, so she cages Hansel with the design on having him for dinner, while at the same time forcing Gretel into doing housekeeping work. Those who don't already know how the story ends can find out for themselves by coming to one (or more) of the remaining shows at Birch Theater this month!

The success of any run of Hansel und Gretel depends, of course, on the performance of the two leading roles. Mezzo-soprano Hai-Ting Chinn's delightfully boyish Hansel was a hit on opening night and soprano Kate Oberjat really couldn't have been more charming as the spunky Gretel. The voices blended well and their brotherly/sisterly chemistry so sparkling that the finale didn't seem to last long enough. The crowd's favorite at curtain call seemed to be Leon Natker's culinary-frustrated wicked witch who ended the show on the wrong side of the oven. The Lyric Opera's General Director not only had to pace the stage in full drag, he also had to fly back and forth over it while singing his witch-ly tune much to the audience's delight.

Kelly Kuo conducted the LOSD Orchestra, keeping the show moving at a good pace while also managing not to drown out his singers on the stage (their singing volume tend to drop precipitously when not facing the audience).

It was rather unhappy that the 725 seat auditorium was quite a bit less than full on opening night of this great German classic. Perhaps some of the area's opera fans had been waylaid by Freddie and Jason (and other boogie men that supposedly haunt the streets on lucky Fridays like this) on the way to the theater? For $32-53 ticket price, you really do get your money's worth at the LOSD. No, the performance wasn't the caliber of the Met or La Scala, but I won't be surprised to see upcoming performers like Hai-Ting Chinn or Kate Oberjat moving on to grander stages a few years down the road. Getting to enjoy them in intimate and neighborly setting like at Birch North Park theater is a good reminder of how important it is to support local performance arts theaters like this one. They give the community something to be proud of.

Remaining performances of Hansel and Gretel at the Lyric Opera San Diego: 15 (2:30PM), 19, 21, 22 November at 7:30PM.