Pulling strings at Segerstrom Hall

Devin Stothers anxiously tapped his feet against a second-story balcony rail, hands half covering his eyes, as he stared intently at the stage below. The boy was about to see what appeared to be a real witch. Suddenly everything went black. The lights came back up and the witch, with eyes glowing, stood before Hansel and Gretel who were lost in the woods.

Four-year-old Devin watched as the witch seemed to fly, feet barely touching the stage as she crossed the stage. Although this witch could cast spells and fly, the actor could barely move without some help from above. This witch was not real at all, it was only a puppet.

Sunday, nearly 500 people, including Devin, packed into the month-old theater for the final showing of Engelbert Humperdinck’s “Hansel and Gretel” presented by the Salzburg Marionette performers. The Austrian troupe, which was formed in 1913, entertained both young and old in the new theater behind the Reneé and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall some six years after the troupe’s last visit to the Orange Count Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa.

The troupe emphasizes that marionettes aren’t just for children. Marionette performers also stage classic operas.

On Thursday and Friday the group performed Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.” Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and four other Mozart operas are in the troupe’s repertoire.

But the troupe likes to introduce children to the art of marionette with the Hansel and Gretel story. That is why during matinee performances the shows are condensed to half the time. Keeping the action moving hopefully will keep the youngsters from doing the same.

Still, a few kids wriggled near the end, like Devin’s sister Alara Stothers. Alara, 7, had trouble understanding the words of the German marionette opera, even though she speaks the language fluently, her mother said.

“I don’t think she thought there would be so much opera singing,” Serap Karaman-Stothers said. Mom was surprised that Devin, even though he’s younger and a boy, was paying so much more attention to the musical than his sister.

Devin sat in almost complete silence, at least for the first half of the performance and anytime the witch leapt around the stage screaming “Hocus Pocus.”

Eventually Karaman-Stothers pulled her son away from the railing, into her lap, and wrapped him in a large pink blanket that was already keeping her and Alara warm in the cool theater. Soon the lights dimmed while the three watched as the moon danced above the heads of the sleeping marionette children.

Karaman-Stothers hoped the kids enjoyed themselves, but at least it was an educational experience.

“I am Turkish but grew up in Germany,” Karaman-Stothers said. “I thought this would be very cultural for them.”