The Met's English-Language HANSEL AND GRETEL Opens Tonight

Continuing a tradition inaugurated in 2006, the Met will offer a holiday presentation this December and January: an English-language performance of an opera, with special weekday matinees and discount pricing designed to make the Met affordable for families with children. This year's production, Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel, opens tonight, December 18 and will star Aleksandra Kurzak, Heidi Stober, and Andriana Chuchman as Gretel; Christine Rice and Jennifer Johnson Cano as Hansel; Michaela Martens and Dwayne Croft as Gertrude and Peter, the wayward children's parents; and Robert Brubaker as the wicked Witch who captures them. Sir Andrew Davis will conduct all seven performances of the opera, which plays through January 8. There will be special weekday matinees at 11 a.m. on December 23 and December 30.

In Humperdinck's opera, the title siblings wander into the forest in search of strawberries and narrowly escape certain doom at the hands of an evil witch. The score includes the familiar "Evening Prayer," in which the children, alone in the forest, ask for fourteen angels to guard them as they sleep. The opera has been associated with the Christmas season ever since its premiere on December 23, 1893. In 1931, a live Christmas Day broadcast of Hansel and Gretel inaugurated the series of Met matinee radio broadcasts that continues to this day.

Aleksandra Kurzak first sang Gretel at the Met in the 2011-12 season. She made her company debut in 2004 as Olympia in Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann and has also sung Blondchen in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail and Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto with the company. Her other performances this season include Gilda at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden; Marie in Donizetti's La Fille du Régiment at Teatro Real in Madrid; and Violetta in Verdi's La Traviata at Deutsche Oper Berlin.

Heidi Stober made her Met debut as Gretel in 2011 and returned in 2013 to sing Pamina in the Met's holiday presentation of Mozart's The Magic Flute. Later this season, she will make her Met role debut as Oscar in Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera, which she will also sing with San Francisco Opera this season. Her recent performances have included Magnolia in Show Boat and Nannetta in Verdi's Falstaff at San Francisco Opera; Adina in Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore, Susanna in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, and Pamina in Die Zauberflöte at Deutsche Oper Berlin; and Ada Leverson in the world premiere of Theodore Morrison's Oscar at Santa Fe Opera.

English mezzo-soprano Christine Rice made her first appearance with the company in a 2011 MET Orchestra concert at Carnegie Hall, singing the world premiere of John Harbison and Alice Munro's Closer To My Own Life. She has sung Hansel with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, where her other roles have included the title character in Bizet's Carmen, Eboli in Verdi's Don Carlo, and Ariadne in Harrison Birtwistle's The Minotaur. In 2012, she sang Nicklausse in a new production of The Tales of Hoffmann at English National Opera. This January, she will sing Giulietta in Les Contes d'Hoffmann at the Met.

Michaela Martens most recently starred as Marilyn Klinghoffer in the Met premiere of John Adams's The Death of Klinghoffer. She has sung six previous roles at the Met, including Gertrude in 2011; Kundry in the 2013 new production of Wagner's Parsifal; Alisa in the 2007 season-opening new production of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor; the Aunt in Janá?ek's Jen?fa; Countess di Coigny in Giordano's Andrea Chénier; Second Norn in Wagner's Götterdämmerung. Later this season, she will sing Judith in a new production of Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle.

Dwayne Croft has sung 30 roles at the Met, including Peter in 2009 and 2010. His other performances at the Met have included including Figaro in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro, and the title roles in Don Giovanni and Britten's Billy Budd. Later this season, he will sing de Brétigny in a revival of Massenet's Manon.

The Witch is one of 12 roles Robert Brubaker has sung at the Met, where his repertory also includes Mime in Wagner's Das Rheingold and Siegfried, Malatestino in Zandonai's Francesca da Rimini, Albert Gregor in Janá?ek's The Makropulos Case, and Mao Tse-Tung in John Adams's Nixon in China.

The December 18 opening performance will be broadcast live on Metropolitan Opera Radio on SIRIUS XM Channel 74, as will the performances on January 3 and 8. The December 18 and January 8 performances will be streamed live on the Met's website, www.metopera.org.

The January 3 performance will be broadcast live over the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network.

For more information on Hansel and Gretel, including casting by date, click here.

Pictured: A scene from Humperdinck's "Hansel and Gretel." Photo by Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera.

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