After 21 years in the wilderness, the late Elijah Moshinsky’s landmark staging of Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hänsel & Gretel is back, and in Revival Director Claudia Osborne’s hands, it still casts the same spell it did when it premiered in 1992.

As Hänsel and Gretel, Margaret Plummer’s mezzo and Stacey Alleaume’s soprano blend perfectly, and they are utterly convincing in their childlike behaviour – a quality Moshinsky achieved by having the original cast watch his own children at play on Mark Thompson’s set when it was first built.

Stacey Alleaume, Margaret Plummer and the OA Children’s Chorus in Hänsel & Gretel 2026. Photo © Carlita Sari

Jane Ede delivers a showstopping performance as the Witch, snarling and chewing her way through Greedy Little Mousey, Who’s Nibbling at My Housey and Hocus, Pocus while hitting her high notes with absolute clarity.

Kathryn Williams and Shikara Ringdahl are utterly delightful as the Dew Fairy and Sandman. Williams draws laughs with her amateur dance troupe of fairies, while Ringdahl’s reassuringly secure resonance suggests a bright future in Late Romantic German opera.

As the cake toppers, the Opera Australia Children’s Chorus under Michael...