Hänsel und Gretel
By Engelbert Humperdinck
Humperdinck's fairy-tale opera, written for his sister's children and first conducted by Richard Strauss.
In 92 days
3 December 2026 · 10:00 Uhr
About Hänsel und Gretel
Humperdinck began it as a few songs for his sister's children and ended with a full Wagnerian score wrapped around a nursery tale — Richard Strauss conducted the premiere in Weimar in 1893 and called it a masterpiece. The hunger in it is real: two children are sent into the wood because there is nothing left at home to eat.
Performances
- 3 December 2026, 10:00 UhrGroßes HausTickets →
- 6 December 2026, 16:00 UhrGroßes HausTickets →
- 7 December 2026, 10:00 UhrGroßes HausTickets →
- 16 December 2026, 10:00 UhrGroßes HausTickets →
- 23 December 2026, 18:00 UhrGroßes HausTickets →
- First performed
- 23.12.1893, Weimar
- Tickets
- 8,50 - 17,70 €
- Stage
- Großes Haus
Also on stage here
Where
Theaterplatz 2, 99423 Weimar
Organiser
Deutsches Nationaltheater und Staatskapelle Weimar
Tickets
8,50 - 17,70 €
Facts checked against the organiser on 29 August 2026
Places and people
Historical figures
1864–1949 • composer • conductor
He conducted the world premiere here on 23 December 1893, during his years at the Weimar court theatre.
Historic sites
Theaterplatz 2, 99423 Weimar
Premiered in this house on 23 December 1893 — the Uraufführung the DNT's own Spielplan still lists.
Historical periods
The premiere of 1893 falls in the town's Silver Age, when Strauss was second Kapellmeister at the court theatre.
Goethe died in 1832, and Weimar had to work out what a town does after its golden age. It decided to keep going, and the answer took eighty-six years — the era the Klassik Stiftung Weimar calls the Silver Age. Music replaced literature as the thing Weimar was for, two royal patrons paid for it, and the schools they founded outlived the monarchy that funded them.