“Hansel & Gretel: Fairy Tale to Opera”

Two singers from the San Diego Young Artists 

Opera Program performing a piece 

from the opera of "Hansel & Gretel"

On January 14^th I had the wonderful opportunity to see Dr. Joseph Thomas and Dr. Nicolas Reveles’ lively discussion, “Hansel & Gretel: Fairy Tale to Opera” as part of San Diego Opera’s 65^th year of the “Taste of Opera” series. Thomas and Reveles discussed the roots of Hansel and Gretel, both the Grimm Brothers’ version and the story in the Humperdinck opera. They explored the dark undertones of the story and how it turned into the (somewhat less dark) story it is known as today. Two talented singers from the San Diego Young Artists Opera Program performed a piece from the opera.

As Reveles beautifully puts it, Humperdinck perfectly illustrates children left to their own devices, without the scrutiny of parents, as seen by the two singers bickering with one another as they dance around the stage. This can be seen with Hansel and Gretel joyously skipping around the stage and fighting over who should do the laundry.

Nicolas Reveles playing a piano

piece from the Hansel & Gretel Opera

I don’t know much about operas, but I know a bit about the Grimm Brothers, so I was excited. The original opera was written in the nineteenth century by composer Engelbert Humperdinck, based on the Grimm brothers’ popular fairy tale.

The origins of “Hansel and Gretel” are a bit unclear, but Thomas says estimates lie around 1315, the time of the Great Famine in Europe. During this time there were many historic tales of cannibalism and child abandonment, two ideas present in the story of Hansel and Gretel. This popular tale may have been inspired by Charles Perrault’s fairy tale Hop o’ My Thumb.

Nicolas Reveles and Joseph Thomas

In the time of Grimm’s tales, it was not uncommon for many children to be abandoned due to lack of food, so Hansel and Gretel’s tale, at least the first part of the tale, is not as far-fetched as it may seem to modern audiences.

Although fairy tales are modernly associated with children, according to Reveles, fairy tales were originally written as a historical and theoretical study for adults. Grimm’s tales were a very new concept, as the common idea of literature was the it should come from Greek and Roman tales, an idea popularized by King Louis XIV. This was known as “The Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns”. 

Although Grimm’s first edition highlighted a motif of child abandonment, this didn’t sit well with audiences, so the mother was edited as a step-mother, and as Dr. Thomas states, editors argued that “a German mother would never do that [abandon her children]”. I am curious if this started the tradition of stepmothers that we see in many Disney movies and the fairy tales they were inspired by.

Hansel and Gretel has some interesting themes. For one, the natural world, or the woods Hansel and Gretel enter, is a world of mysticality, poetry, and fairy tales, perhaps as an escape from the restrictive world the two live in at their own home. These stories had many educational themes throughout which may not have been as obvious being a modern reader.

This was truly such a fun talk and I learned so much.

-SS

The Fairy Tale of Love Day's Simulation

With the hallmark day of love approaching, there are usually two groups of people that begin to emerge. The first group are those who love being in love, buying things for those they love, and waiting to get that special treat from the person they love; while the second group are the ones who say bah-humbug to another corporatized holiday.

The Disney corporation has most certainly assisted in this holiday’s grandeur with all the “happily ever afters” and “true love’s kiss” ideology—an over-exaggerated romance aimed at young audiences but still capture that “Aw, how sweet” from the adults that continue to buy these films for their children. Disney is also partially responsible for the perceived realities of gender roles, marriage, and love through so many of their early feature length animations—what Jean Baudrillard of course defines as the simulacra. But perhaps it goes back further than Disney, to the beginning of publishing fairy tales—tales of oral tradition that resonated with folk culture making its way into fancy, upper-class parlors and salons merely as prizes of entertainment.

Historically, both oral and literary fairy tales were used to overcome the terror of bestiality and barbaric forces that challenged “free will and human compassion.”  The way the protagonist overcomes, changes, or improves a terrifying villain or situation into fortune, happiness, or tranquility shows the way socio-psychological mechanisms become accepted as ideologies that define what is right and wrong, good and bad, beautiful and grotesque. Jack Zipes points out that it is the sense of wonder in these functions that distinguishes fairy tales from other literary works that transform them into agents of ideology. Wonder quoted from The Oxford Universal Dictionary, “the emotion excited by the perception of something novel and unexpected…” can also be linked to a fantasy of utopia that becomes like a memory within the emotions created by these stories (When Dreams Come True 1–4).

Among the first popular publications of fairy tales were the collections written by the Grimm Brothers, and like Charles Perrault, they wrote down folk tales passed down orally over generations. One Grimm story that is interesting to look at for its innuendos on following dominant social practices is “Clever Hans.” This story demonstrates the dominant ideologies working to oppose anything that suggests the grotesque or folk culture—anything acting out of upper class sophistication. The story was written as a dialogue between the characters, which provides a unique view of only the characters without external forces, which exposed more of the childlike innocence Hans’s character brings. Hans is a symbol of what becomes of someone who cannot understand or follow social norms, which presents them as an adult that is not ready to do adult things in society—a character perhaps highly relatable for children.

The dialogue goes like this:

Hans's mother asks, "Where are you going, Hans?"

Hans answers, "To Gretel's."

"Behave yourself, Hans."

"Behave myself. Good-bye, mother."

"Good-bye, Hans."

Hans comes to Gretel's. "Good day, Gretel."

"Good day, Hans. Are you bringing something good?"

"Bringing nothing. Want something."

Gretel gives Hans a needle.

Hans says, "Good-bye, Gretel."

"Good-bye, Hans."

Hans takes the needle, sticks it into a hay wagon, and walks home behind the wagon.

"Good evening, mother."

"Good evening, Hans. Where have you been?"

"At Gretel's."

"What did you take her?"

"Took nothing. Got something."

"What did Gretel give you?"

"Gave me a needle."

"Where is the needle, Hans?"

"Stuck in the hay wagon."

"That was stupid, Hans. You should have stuck the needle in your sleeve."

"Doesn't matter. Do better."

The story continues in the same patter of dialogue that is silly, and the reader is entertained by his “stupidity.” Hans goes to Gretel several more times and returns with items she gives him but always does what his mother tells him to do with the previous item. In the last part of the story, Hans brings Gretel home like a calf and ties her in the barn, because that is what his mother had told him to do that with a calf he had previously brought home. His mother tells him he has done wrong and to cast friendly eyes on her. The last lines in the story read: “Hans goes into the stable, cuts out the eyes of all the calves and sheep, and throws them in Gretel's face. Then Gretel becomes angry, tears herself loose and runs away. She is no longer Hans's bride.” 

Gretel’s character symbolizes the dominant culture, the normative ideologies that expose others who do not learn to docilely follow along, and Hans’s character perhaps represents the grotesque realism of Carnival—a symbol that acknowledges the child and uncivilized. Together the couple demonstrates how these worlds cannot exist together. The last statement shows that working against the “real” social order, one will only be left alone to suffer the loss of a loving spouse—ideology’s mode of interpellation. Hans loses a bride because assimilation is required of an individual in order to exist within the world where social order dominates the average lifestyle. In Hans’s story, he cannot grasp the logical adult order which defines him as more of an outcast or still too childish. His character demonstrates a failure in basic development that society relies on to maintain the dominant culture and the apparatuses that support it. Those who do not accept basic ideologies become laughing stock, the Scrooges or ones who wear black on Valentines day, but this only shows how the judgments of the dominant social order simulate its own aesthetics and ideologies to keep making “true love’s kiss” at the end of “happily ever after” such a desirable thing.

Notes:

• "Clever Hans" by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
• Jean Baudrillard Simulations
• Jack Zipes Wiki

The Grimm Brother’s Surprisingly Terrifying Authentic Fairy Tales Recent Translation By Jack Zipes

As many of you probably already know (and if not this will be quite a surprise), the Grimm Brothers were the authors of many well-known folktales past down over generations. Many of these tales have been adapted into sweet movies of lovely princesses and songs that provoke nostalgic memories. The original published stories, however, were nothing like this. They were, dark and twisted, filled with scenarios of murder, greed, lust, death, and even rape.  Silly to think those stories adapted by Disney are so precious, right?

In a recent article for the Irish Times,Jack Zipes (acclaimed author of several books discussing fairy tales in society today such as Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theoriesof Folk and Fairy Tales and Why FairyTales Stick: The Evolution and Relevance of a Genre), talks about the contradictions and distortions these modern versions hold. He points out how there are dark images and descriptions in the original publications and how these new versions are probably opposite to the intentions of the Grimm Brothers original publications. He emphasizes that the original published fairy tales were not originally meant for a child audience and also never intended to become great works of children’s literature. Interestingly, the stories originated from European, Middle Eastern, and Asian tales passed down orally over generations and most of the stories did not even contain fairies.

Zipes states, “Clearly, if [the Grimm Brothers] were living today, they would be shocked to discover how their tales have been misread and hyped and spread throughout the world in all sizes and shapes, not to mention in films and TV programs that might make them shudder.”

From Rapunzel

To clarify just how different these versions of the fairy tales are, here are two examples:

In the Grimm’s version of Rapunzel, a husband steals from the garden of a witch to satisfy his pregnant wife’s brutal pregnancy cravings. When the husband is caught stealing ‘rampion’ from the garden, he is forced to give the witch his daughter, who then grows into the most beautiful girl with long golden hair. The witch locks her in a tower on her twelfth birthday that has neither stair nor doors. A prince wandering through the forest sees the witch call to Rapunzel to let down her hair one day and upon her departure mimics the call to the dame at the top of the tower. They fall in love and the prince impregnates Rapunzel. The witch finds out and in her anger cuts off Rapunzel’s hair and put her out into the forest to fend for herself. The next time the prince comes to visit, the witch pretends to be Rapunzel and ultimately throws him from the tower, blinding him when he lands face-first in a thorny bush. He wanders around for years blinded until one day Rapunzel, who has now given birth to twins, finds him and they are reunited.

         This is exceptionally different from the Disney movie version where Rapunzel starts out as a princess and the witch is the villain of this version. The prince's character in the Disney movie is a thief-outlaw and together they defeat the evil witch and return to the king and queen, who have missed their daughter for eighteen years. Then once the outlaw-thief gives up his bad ways, he and Rapunzel get married and live happily-ever-after.

The Grimm’s version of SleepingBeauty is sort of similar to the Disney version, expect for the whole second part of the story that gets cut out of the movie. After the prince rescues the princess from her hundred years of sleep, in the story, he does not go and fight an evil dragon fairy, but instead marries the princess and they have two children. His mother, the queen, is a terrible evil ogre who is very jealous of the princess and the children and desires to eat them for her dinner. She demands that the cook kill and serve them to her. The cook hides them in his house and instead uses different animal meats to disguise the dinner she thinks she is having. The queen ends up finding out the trick and as she is preparing to throw the kids and the princess into a pit with snakes and vipers, the prince arrives just in time to save the day. Disney probably assumed that mothers wouldn’t be so satisfied with a story that portrays them as an evil ogre. So they simply cut out that ‘unnecessary’ part of the story and included their own ending, which they could gain more profit from about fifty-five years later by creating a movie version of the villain, Maleficent.

 

If these original versions have caught your attention, check out Jack Zipes’s recently published The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of theBrothers Grimm from Princeton University Press. This collection is translated from the last original edition of the Grimm Brother’s fairy tales and is one that will bring up many hot conversation starters next time someone brings up a Disney movie, song or princess.

Sources and Notes:

• Irish Times article: http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/jack-zipes-on-those-saucy-grimms-fairy-tales-your-mother-never-told-you-1.2034660
• Other fun facts: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/12/the-real-story-behind-eve_n_4239730.html
• Sleeping Beauty Summary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeping_Beauty
• Rapunzel Summary:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapunzel
• Jack Zipes's New Book: The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm