With no curtain hiding it, the audience could enjoy Edward T. Morris’s angular, disjointed, abstract design of the ever-present trees on the set as they sat down in the theater before Annapolis Opera’s Hansel and Gretel this past weekend.
Criminally under-attended on opening night, this is a great, Stranger Things-esque production from a great company that I hope we see again in the future. Sharlene Clinton dressed the “children” of the cast in beanies and puffy jackets and vests, and I ended up loving how they set the opera in the 70s, a time period more contemporary than nineteenth-century Bavaria when children still went exploring unsupervised.
Maestro Craig Kier, doing a great job leading the orchestra as always, brought out the wonderful full orchestrations of this piece as well as the top-notch chorus. Director Katherine M. Carter added to everything the orchestra was doing with her staging, even in places like the overture that one might not expect to be staged. Here I adored what they did with the chorus. Most of the overture was them playing with Hansel and Gretel. Even better, at the end of the overture we saw the Witch enter and lure some children away with candy bars.
Amia Langer as Gretel and Elizabeth Sarian as Hansel immediately won me over with how affectionate they were with each other as brother and sister. Bravi to them, too, for projecting over Humperdinck’s thick orchestration. They also added some flossing to the dance scene, which I found adorable. I couldn’t help but laugh. Acting-wise, Sarian nailed Hansel’s boyish affect, and Langer exuded the joys of girlhood.
Enter Alice Chung as Hansel and Gretel’s much-put-upon mother. Chung, having sung Dinah in Trouble in Tahiti two seasons ago with this same company, is known to Annapolis audiences, and should be. In she came with her Wagnerian-sized dramatic voice, clearly having had enough of her children’s nonsense, and smoking. She could maybe have acted a little more tired and devastated after she inadvertently breaks the family milk jug and banishes Hansel and Gretel to the woods, but her whole performance was still amazing. Her voice didn’t just project over the orchestra, it soared.
Meanwhile, Tim Mix played possibly the drunkest Father I’ve yet seen for this opera. Sporting a mullet, jeans, and corduroy jacket, I loved how this role showed him off vocally, and having worked with Chung before on Trouble in Tahiti, he has clearly a good dynamic and rapport with her onstage.
Part of what stood out about the orchestra was the interludes between acts. Actors helped move the set between the first and second acts, which helped keep the audience in the story as opposed to the curtain closing or lots of stagehands moving it.
The second act featured Claire Iverson as the Sandman in a fabulous silver-sequined costume. Her arias for both this and the Dew Fairy (featuring another fabulous costume, this one with gold sequins) at the top of the third act were solid, doubly impressive because she sang them both when not every production does that.
After Hansel and Gretel sang their beautiful Evening Prayer, the audience was treated to their dream sequence, and again Carter’s staging came through. The dream involved all the children playing together again, but also an extremely sweet sequence where the parents play with their children and ultimately read them to sleep. This really made me want to root for them as a family.
Come the third act, the audience learns that the Witch’s house is made not of gingerbread, but of candy bars. The Witch, played by Chelsea Laggan, wore a black dress with multicolored sequins and flaming red, Winnifred Sanderson-esque hair. Laggan had an excellent entrance, at first in one spot upstage, then reappearing at her next entrance in a different place. It was an effective trick to get the audience’s interest piqued as to where she would come from, a little bit of stage magic. Laggan’s characterization came off as very serious, and vocally it was very well-sung, but this is a character we want to see having fun on some level. There was some of that during her aria when she danced with the chorus, who at this point had become candy bars themselves, but it could have been amplified much more and applied to the entire scene. There was no scream as Hansel and Gretel pushed her into the “oven” (candy factory?) but later there was an explosion of confetti out of the chimney, and it came to light that she had, hilariously, become a giant Witch candy bar.
All in all, Annapolis Opera proved with this production that an update to the usual time period setting of an opera can work. They should be proud of this production, and we as the audience are grateful that they chose this opera this season. The last time they produced it? Their first season, in 1980. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait over 45 more years for another performance of this.
Maggie Ramsey
Hansel and Gretel
Music by Engelbert Humperdinck
Libretto by Adelheid Wette
Cast and Production Staff:
Gretel – Amia Langer; Hansel – Elizabeth Sarian; Mother – Alice Chung; Father – Tim Mix; The Sandman/Dew Fairy – Claire Iverson; The Witch – Chelsea Laggan; Annapolis Opera Chorus – Sophie Michelle Clark, Louanna Colon, Ashlee Hoffman, Danielle Jellerette, Linda Liu, Sophia Merbaum, Katie Procell, Michelle Ravitsky, Caroline Sykes, Natalie Turner, Emma Leigh Webster, Alicia Woodberry
Annapolis Symphony Orchestra – Violin I – Nicholas Currie (Acting Concertmaster), William Wang (Acting Associate Concertmaster), Abby Armbruster (Acting Assistant Concertmaster), Sara Schneider; Violin II – Kristin Bakkegard (Acting Principal), Alexandra Mikhlin (Acting Associate Principal), Glen Kuenzi, Sally Stallings Amass; Viola – Sarah Hart (Principal), Derek Smith (Associate Principal), Daphne Eller; Cello – Pei Lu (Acting Principal), Daniel Shomper (Acting Associate Principal); Bass – Patrick Raynard (Principal); Flute – Sarah McIver (Acting Principal); Oboe – Fatma Daglar (Principal); Clarinet – Robert DiLutis (Principal), Brian Eldridge; Bassoon – Jimmy Ren (Acting Principal); Horn – Jacob Wiggins (Acting Principal), Ho Hin Kwong; Trumpet – Christopher Sala (Principal); Bass Trombone – Jay Heltzer (Principal); Timpani – Curt Armbruster (Principal); Percussion – William Kan (Principal), Elizabeth Kan; Harp – Rebecca Smith (Acting Principal); Artistic Director and Conductor – José-Luis Novo; Director of Artistic Operations – Miriam Fogel; Orchestra Librarian – Olivia Ren
Conductor – Craig Kier; Director – Katherine M. Carter; Production Designer – Edward T. Morris; Lighting Designer & Production Manager – Chris Brusberg; Wardrobe Supervisor – Sharlene Clinton; Wig/Make-Up Designer – Priscilla Bruce; Stage Manager – Brian Richard Donoghue; Assistant Stage Manager – Mel Mader, Lurr Ragen; Principal Coach & Pianist – Pei-Hsuan Lin; Chorus Master – Joann Kulesza; Properties Manager – Jessica Yost; Supertitle Operator – Olivia Heaner; Dressers – Sharlene Clinton, Liz D’Antonio, Tara Muscovich, Carol Tabak, Lorraine vom Saal; Lighting Operator – Antonio Adams; Graphic Design – Rachel Buxton; Maryland Hall Stage Crew; Set Builder – Michael Sheehan, Mid-Atlantic Sets
Maryland Hall, Annapolis, MD, March 13, 2026
Top image: Elizabeth Sarian as Hansel and Amia Langer as Gretel
All photos by Edward T. Morris