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New Moon is nothing if not an international advertisement for the hungry virtues of virginity and young people can’t get enough of it
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Theatre
A smart, prickly and rewarding view of sexual and emotional confusion
Cock
Restaurants
Kitchen W8 is a bargain for this area, if such sophistication is what you crave
Kitchen W8
Too long and drawn out but very entertaining with excellent special effects
This is a peculiar play and does not work for me. Some of it is very funny but there are real flaws
Alex has a strong powerful voice and was faultless, she is far better now than she was on the X-Factor
London,
Barry Millington's rating
Reader rating
Trains: Tube: Covent Garden 
Phone: 020 7304 4000
Vocally superb: Angelika Kirchschlager as Hänsel and Diana Damrau as Gretel
Two neglected children of feckless/deprived (according to your point of view) parents, kidnapped while gorging on junk food. Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel provides a checklist of contemporary social issues. All that’s missing is the social worker struggling with an impossible caseload.
It took the landmark productions of David Pountney at ENO in 1987 and Richard Jones at WNO in 1998 to show us this was more than the aural equivalent of the gingerbread house that ensnares the wide-eyed children. Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier in their new production strike what seems an ideal balance between the saccharine elements of the story and score and the disturbing social and psychological undercurrents.
The opening act is set not in the usual kitchen with 1950s refrigerator but in the children’s bedroom, cleverly boxed in to accentuate the size of the adults playing children. The painted flats of the forest invoke a fairytale setting and the virtuoso use of sliding panels may be an in-joke (Humperdinck provided music for Wagner’s Parsifal for a scene change involving such a cyclorama).
Best of all is the Dream Pantomime, a cosy hearthside scene with storybook animals. A loving father and mother hand over Christmas presents — a single sandwich each, devoured eagerly by the hungry children. Christian Fenouillat’s designs and Christophe Forey’s lighting work in perfect synchrony with the music to produce a heartwarming climax with a knowing nod towards the inherent sentimentality of the moment.
The final scene in the witch’s cottage is chilling and darkly humorous. The veteran Anja Silja (a star at Bayreuth in the 1960s) now deploys a vibrato almost as fearsome as her predatory sexuality. Her previous victims are strung up on hooks like meat.
Angelika Kirchschlager’s tousled, boyish Hänsel and Diana Damrau’s Gretel are dramatically convincing and vocally superb, while their parents, excellently sung and played by Elizabeth Connell and Thomas Allen, earn our sympathy as well as our censure. Pumeza Matshikiza’s goblin-like Sandman is truly magical and Anita Watson’s feather-dusting Dew Fairy another amusing creation. Colin Davis, unafraid to relish the icing on the cake, draws a warm, effulgent sound from the orchestra.
Until 1 January (020 7304 4000).
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
Have to say, I have just returned from seeing the Royal Opera's Hansel and Gretel and whilst the production is not perfect, I found it infinitely more pleasing than Glyndebourne's ugly and disturbing offering which I walked out of at the interval having booed loudly. Although a matter of personal taste, the Opera House's box set was significantly more attractive than the outsized cardboard carton and rubbish strewn refuse site on offer in Monsiuer Pelly's production. Anja Silja's voice whilst on occasions shrill and lacking the delicacy of her earlier years seemed apt for the witch and her performance was for me one of the highlights of the evening. All in all I found the Covent Garden production at times deeply moving, highly successful in conveying the more comic elements of the opera and extremely memorable for the RIGHT reasons.
- Andrew Gosling, Reigate
Poor dear Brian, The boos were pantomime-style for the wicked witch. Surely you were aware of that. There were plenty of cheers too for the enduring star that is Anja Silja. Paul Brooke
- Paul Brooke, London
I know that comparisons are odius but having seen Glyndebournes superb production I can only say that I thought last nights performance was quite awful. The sets can only be described as provincial pantomime and the production was amateur. There was some lovely siinging from the main principals but Anja Silja should never have been allowed on the stage. Your critic failed to mention that she was greeted with boos when she took her curtain call. In all a very dispiriting evening.
- Brian Gill, Bedford UK
