So after all the hype about a follow-up to Madama Butterfly and leaving everyone in suspense, I realised that it was actually not so exciting after all. Yet, I will jazz it up to make it worth you while dear readers.

The Loge is a little box suspended on the sides of the opera house. Very grand, very small and intimate, where one most has to find an extortionist body pose to be able to see the stage. Bad design. There are three rows of chairs in the box – three in the front, two in the second row, and a really sad chair at the back. This person can most certainly not see a thing on stage. Also, the acoustics are rather strange from this angle, being directly above the wood instruments in the orchestra pit. While one can see every emotion of the conductor, the bellowing wood section can be quite overwhelming and drown out the voices.

In the front row was a couple whom I noticed as I arrived at the theatre, for the woman was strikingly beautiful. I would think she was in her 60s, jet black hair pulled back into a roll with a glittering clasp holding it in place. She wore no visible make-up except for a Maria Callas-style eyeliner. A string of pearls and a black velvet choker with a small diamond clasp around her neck perfectly complemented a black dress. Regal. Her husband was an ordinary-looking man with blow-dried hair. (Being so close up in the Loge I could not help notice…). They were to the left of the front row. In front of me and next to them was another woman, also in her 60’s, with the same jet black hair, but in a more casual style. The same no visible make-up, perfect pale skin, wearing a very stylishly tailored tweed jacket with a mandarin collar, silk blouse. Everything about both women spoke of style. (The other compatriots in the box were ordinary, myself included, compared to the two women.) I realise how attractive I find older women who wear their age with such style and grace.

During the interval the couple start speaking to the woman sitting in front of me. I hear her saying that she is from South Africa. The couple is very interested and asks her if she speaks Dutch, to which she replies that she is actually Afrikaans. Blow me away. Of course I ask her in Afrikaans “en waar kom jy vandaan?”. Houtbaai, nogal! We both laugh a lekker Afrikaanse gelag – what a small world! What are the chances that two people from Hout Bay end up at the opera in Vienna? After the opera I meet her husband who was sitting in another seat and we agree to have coffee once back home.

So last night I (and the entire kindergarten of Vienna with their grandmothers) attended Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel in der Volksoper. I saw this opera once before in London at the English National Opera and fell in love with it. At the time in London there was a mystery of some children that disappeared, so it was a rather sinister experience to be watching this opera on the same theme. (I remember also seeing Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes which was eqyually disturbing along the same theme.)

The Volksoper was buzzing with hundreds of little and not-so-little children. My heart sank, thinking of children back home in a cinema or a matinee of Sleeping Beauty on Ice… Considering the cost of a gin and tonic, I did consider doing a double to help me through this ordeal and calm me down. I recoiled at the price and decided to just go with the flow. Of course, German children are perhaps a little different from those at home. They were mostly impeccably dressed in corduroy trousers and shirts with collars. I was seated between two grandmothers with their very small grandchildren, both boys. They had raised seat cushions and were beyond excited. It was beautiful to watch the grandmothers explaining, reading the program to them, and chattering away.

The opera is a stark, German, (grim by Grimm) rendition of the fairy tale. (I remember as a child reading all the Grimm fairy tales in a thick, illustrated book from the local library. I was mesmerized, transported to the sights and sounds and tastes of every story.) The opera is anything but a fairy tale, with music set to match. It is a magnificent piece of psychological exploration of so many universal issues, with a complex musical score. The singers are challenged with an energetic vocal score. It is clear that Humperdinck had Wagner as a teacher, considering the dense and dramatic idiosyncrasies of the orchestration. There is enough tenderness and darkness mixed for any Wagnerian opera that perfectly matches the dark and light moments of the fairy tale. This is a rare example of a theatrical piece that speaks to both adults and children simultaneously.

The little boys on either side of me were on the edge of their raised seat cushions. When the witch went flying on her broom across the breadth of the orchestra pit, I started applauding with them! We were trapped with Hänsel und Gretel by the magic of this wicked witch and her gingerbread house. I was captivated by all the themes that were woven into the fairy tale and so exquisitely harmonized within the deeply evocative music: vulnerability, care, social commentary on poverty (in contrast with the reality of sitting in an expensive seat at the Volksoper). Is there a moral to the story? Yes. The power of theatre, the magic of a story that was written in 1812 that resonates in 2025 and that speaks to the heart. (I wish I could chat to some of the children and hear what impression this made on them!)