(WOLF CHILDREN)
Music theater for adults adapted from Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel
Again from January 16, 2020.
Additional performances through February 23, 2020
The war is over. But the parents are gone and their house is lying in ruins. Home only continues to exist in memories. The seven sisters have found a place to stay for the night; and, where the past will soon be seen to be as fragile as the future, the familiar story of Hansel and Gretel becomes a place of refuge where time seems to stand still, at first. After all, what the sisters can still hold tightly to are the fantasy worlds of carefree days, in which fairytales and songs wait for them reliably. They play against the daily darkening with the romantic Biedermeier idyll of a Humperdinck.
The opera Hansel and Gretel has held a fixed place in the repertory of German theater for decades. Everyone knows the story of the two siblings who are sent away by their parents and lose their way in the forest on the search for something to eat. The story of the Wolfskinder, or “wolf children“, the homeless orphans who came out of the former East Prussia after the Second World War and wandered about in the forests of Lithuania, is much less anchored in cultural memory. In the neighboring country, so the rumor went, there was still bread and cake and so the children set off on their way to escape the hunger and find a new home.
The piece combines the memories of former “wolf children” with a chamber music version of Humperdinck’s work. This is an evening of music theater about the loss of home and the sense of belonging; a story about identity and growing up.
Version by von Ulrike Schwab, Marion Meyer, Tobias Schwencke and Markus Syperek
Musical Arrangement: Tobias Schwencke, Markus Syperek | Stage Direction: Ulrike Schwab | Musical Direction: Markus Syperek | Stage and Costume Design: Rebekka Dornhege Reyes | Dramaturgy: Marion Meyer
Featuring: Angela Braun, Ildiko Ludwig, Isabelle Klemt, Maja Lange, Marine Madelin, Laura Esterina Pezzoli, Amélie Saadia