Upcoming Performances

2024

Auction of Arias: Opera on the Avenue
October 27, 6:30 PM
McCormick Café
2419 Montana Avenue, Billings, Montana

2025

OperaFest
Hansel and Gretel
March 14, 15, 16, 21 & 23, 2025

"Hansel and Gretel" is an opera by nineteenth-century composer Engelbert Humperdinck. The libretto was written by Humperdinck's sister, Adelheid Wette, based on the Grimm brothers' fairy tale of the same name.

Hansel and Gretel are the young children of a poor woodcutter. When a famine settles over the land, the woodcutter's wife tells him to take the children into the woods and leave them there to fend for themselves. The woodcutter opposes the plan, but his wife repeats her demands until he reluctantly agrees.

ACT I
In the broom-maker’s house. Hansel complains he is hungry. Gretel shows him some milk that a neighbor has given for the family’s supper. The children dance. Their mother returns and wants to know why they have got so little work done. She accidentally spills the milk and chases the children out into the woods to pick strawberries. Their father, a broom-maker, returns home drunk. He brings out the food he has bought, then asks where the children have gone. The mother tells him that she has sent them into the woods. He tells her about the Witch who lives there, and that the children are in danger. They go out into the woods to look for them.

ACT II
In the woods. Hansel picks strawberries. The children hear a cuckoo singing and eat the strawberries. Soon they ate every one. In the sudden silence of the wood, Hansel admits to Gretel that he has lost the way. The children grow frightened. The Sandman comes to bring them sleep, sprinkling sand over their eyes. The children say their evening prayer. In a dream, they see 14 angels.

ACT III
The gingerbread house. The Dew Fairy comes to waken the children. Gretel wakes Hansel, and they see the gingerbread house. They do not notice the Witch. The Witch decides to fatten Hansel up and puts a spell on him. The oven is hot. Gretel breaks the Witch’s spell and sets Hansel free. When the Witch asks her to look in the oven, she pretends she doesn’t know how to: the Witch must show her. When the Witch peers into the oven, the children shove her inside and shut the door. The oven explodes. The gingerbread children come back to life. The mother and father find the children, and all express gratitude for their salvation.

—Courtesy Welsh National Opera