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Show Has To Research Angels For 'Hansel & GreteF University of Utah ballet professor Mattlyn Gavers has been busy researching angels for her part in the production of the opera "Hansel and Gretel." MS. GAVERS is choreographing a five-minute classical ballet danced by the 14 "angels" who appear as the children are sleeping, lost in the woods. "We have concepts and feelings of how angels should be, and I wanted to capture these feelings in the dance," Ms. Gavers says. "I WAS rifling through an art book and found exactly the light, pure, spiritual quality I wanted in the works of the Florentine painters of the Renaissance. Their angels have a feeling of movement, flowing clothing and a humane quality that 1 liked. "THE Byzantine angels seemed too plodding and klutzy." she adds. "Hansel and Gretel," one of the few operas ever written that appeals to the whole family, will make its Utah debut January 28-31 in Kingsbury Kings-bury Hall on the University campus. THE two-hour production, presented by the Utah Opera Company, will feature an all local cast, full opera orchestra orches-tra of Utah Symphony musicians and the Salt Lake Boys Choir. "This is an enchanting opera- tha: will delight children and yet is sophisticated sophis-ticated enough for adults to enjoy," Ms. Gavers says. "IT HAS music that swoops and soars, and songs that people will walk out of the hall humming. It is one of the few grand operas where there is no deaih--except the witch--and where good wins over evil." The production begins nightly at 8 p.m. and children will receive a 20 percent admission ad-mission discount on all seats. THE DANCE of the angels will be performed by 14 ballet majors from the University. Hansel and Gretel. lost in the woods while picking berries, sing their evening prayer song before falling asleep. The song is about the 14 angels who will protect them as ihey sleep: two at my head, two at my feet, two to the right side, two to the left side, two to cover me. two who will awaken me m case of alarm and two who will point the way to heaven. "THE angels will enter the stage on a 'staircase from heaven' and dance around the children, ending up their dance in the positions described in the prayer song," Ms. Gavers adds. |