December 29, 2007 |
Short Order
The lure of the Iron Chef, and the rage for cooking (or at least watching it) has not been lost on the nouvelle Metropolitan Opera in its holiday production of Hansel and Gretel, three acts set in three kitchens. A master stroke was hiring Jean Georges’ pastry wiz Johnny Iuzzini to bake the monster black forest cake poised on a Mick Jagger tongue that gets ravaged in act three: the cake, not the tongue.
A filmed version will be shown in 600 theaters world wide on New Year’s Day, a brand extension of opera dreamed up by the Met’s exuberant new director Peter Gelb. Of course, 2500 school children, many of them students of the culinary arts, would be invited to the dress rehearsel, and beforehand, a student Bûche de Noël baking competition judged by Iuzzini himself. Our Insatiable Reporter, Sylvie Bigar, couldn’t resist.
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