About this item
This DVD, Hansel & Gretel: An Opera Fantasy, may be the definitive production of one of the greatest fairy tales ever told. With brilliant imagination and technical wizardry, comparable only to Walt Disney's Fantasia, this DVD uses stop-action animation, over 35 hand-sculpted Kinemen dolls (a precursor to claymation), and lavish sets to create a fantasyland of unearthly beauty. Set to Englebert Humperdinck's classic 1893 opera, sung by some of the most acclaimed performers of the time (Anna Russell, Constance Brigham, Mildred Dunnockand Frank Rogier), the film's score, conducted by Franz Aller, won a Grammy Award and is filled with characters of unparalleled charm.The Kinemen characters featured in the film took over 15 years to develop. Compounded of intricate armatures, a secret chemical mixture for flesh, human hair, magnetized feet and truly human personalities; they are exemplary ''actors,'' able to simulate natural movements of the human body, with a variety of facial expressions that equal the range of humans.
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About the Author
Anna Russell is an editor and writer for "The Talk of the Town" section at The New Yorker. She was previously the arts and culture correspondent for The Wall Street Journal in London, and has worked under several other publications, including Condé Nast Traveler, Newsweek, and The New York Daily News. She studied English literature at New York University.
