Susie: This is a real folk song adapted by Humperdinck for the opera.

Nibbling-witch: This is a literal translation of the German Knusperhexe. For more on witches click here.

Search: In the original Grimm story, the parents deliberately take the children to the woods and abandon them because there will then be more food for themselves.

Little Man: This is also a German folk song and is a riddle. Can you solve it? Click here for the answer.

Cuckoo: This bird with the well-known call is also a notorious thief and killer. It robs the nests of other birds and destroy the eggs, then substitutes its own. The unsuspecting new "parents" raise the cuckoo chicks as their own, struggling to feed the babies who are sometimes larger than they are.

Sandman and Dew Fairy: Some German children are still taught that, at bed time, the Sandman will sprinkle sand in their eyes to make them sleep. These two characters are men but are sung by women. Neither character is in the original Grimm story.

Angel Chorus: The words to this first appeared on a tombstone in 1324. It was incorporated into the book Des Knaben Wunderhorn, a three volume collection of German folk songs compiled by Achim von Armin and Clemens Brentano. Many of its songs have been set to music by famous composers. The angels do not appear in the Grimm story.

THE ANGEL CHORUS:
When at night I go to sleep,
Fourteen angels watch do keep.
Two my head are guarding.
Two my feet are guarding.
Two are at my right hand.
Two are at my left hand.
Two who warmly cover.
Two who o'er me hover.
Two to whom is given
To guide my steps to Heaven.

Gingerbread children: These are not in the Grimm story. Their presence provides a chorus for the opera.

Adelheid Wette (1858-1916): The sister of Engelbert Humperdinck was an author and librettist who, with her husband Hermann Wette, wrote the libretto for Hansel and Gretel and for her brother's Snow White and The Seven Little Ghosts. A number of her stories are in a German book of childrens' poems.

Richard Strauss: Strauss wrote, "I have just looked through the score of your Hänsel und Gretel and have immediatley sat down to try to tell you how much your work has enchanted me. It is a piece of the highest order ... not for a long time have I been so impressed by a work.

Munich: While in Munich, Humperdinck wrote his sister, "This morning I had the great good fortune to attend an orchestral rehearsal and it has given me something I have needed for a long time: a great success. I feel like Moses when he saw the Promised Land from afar.

Agreed: "It is impossible for me to follow a performance of your work without feeling the deepest emotion, and it cast an irresistible spell upon me. ... I played it through again from beginning to end. I can more or less picture the sets in my mind's eye ..."

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Revised October 2009
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