by Mike Telin
The first volume of children’s tales published in Germany by the Brothers Grimm in 1812 includes some of today’s most beloved stories — Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel, and Rumpelstiltskin. That volume also includes the tale of Hänsel and Gretel in which two children cleverly outwit a witch.
On Friday, March 27 at 7:00 pm and Sunday, March 29 at 3:00 pm, Engelbert Humperdinck’s opera, based on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, returns to the Kulas Hall stage at the Cleveland Institute of Music in performances by CIM Opera Theatre. JJ Hudson directs and Harry Davidson conducts the CIM Orchestra The production, which has a running time of two hours and twenty minutes with one intermission, will be sung in German with English supertitles. Tickets are available online.
I caught up with JJ Hudson by telephone and began our conversation by asking why they chose this particular title for the spring opera.
JJ: This year we will have produced two operas based on fairytales — Judith Weir’s Blonde Eckbert in late January and now Hänsel and Gretel. Both introduce our students to early German romanticism and its themes: mystery in the forest, witches, birds that speak, and otherworldly things.
Whether you know her as Cendrillon, Aschenbrödel, La Cenerentola, La Cenicienta, Soluschka, or, most likely, Cinderella, the story of that downtrodden stepchild is an irresistible fairy tale. It’s been turned into many operas, but perhaps most magically by Jules Massenet in his Cendrillon, beautifully produced by CIM Opera Theater in Kulas Hall on November 13.
Is there a more fun-filled, accessible opera than Mozart’s 
From November 7-10, Cleveland Institute of Music Opera Theater presented a double bill of Igor Stravinsky’s early Le Rossignol and Maurice Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges in CIM’s Kulas Hall. Dean Southern directed, and Harry Davidson conducted the CIM Orchestra, with sets and lighting by Dave Brooks and costumes by Inda Blatch-Geib. It was a very fine show, both musically and theatrically. 
Making virtue out of necessity, CIM Opera Theater director David Bamberger introduced a new operatic technique in his production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro on Thursday, November 5 in Kulas Hall: ventriloquism.