We saw this on TV. It didn’t seem like a musically spectacular opera, but the story is very interesting with all those scary psychological reverberations so I think it’s actually a great idea for an opera, just a shame Janáček didn’t write it instead of Humperdinck, which would have been brilliant (which reminds me to get more Janáček). Anyway, the WNO’s production was extra scary and morbid and rather disgusting, really, and I felt sorry for the poor small children in the audience being forced to watch this. We saw them sitting down ready to be metaphorically consumed, in this whole new horrible modern way- forced exposure to inappropriate obscene “high art” during the poetic overture-film. If only they could have gone to see something more suitable to their ages instead, such as Don Giovanni or Fidelio, or more or less anything else; this must have given them nightmares for the rest of their little lives. The gingerbread children were mannequins, there was blood everywhere, and the whole thing reminded me of a big Nazi bakery, which was no doubt the point. Still, it’s a good thing these modern producers are here to make the meanings of these old dramatic works of art more obvious to us all, obviously the Grimm brothers and Mr Humperdinck on their own couldn’t possibly have managed it.