Undine is an opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 in four acts by Albert Lortzing

Albert Lortzing

Gustav Albert Lortzing was a German composer, actor and singer. He is considered to be the main representative of the German Spieloper, a form similar to the French opéra comique, which grew out of the Singspiel.-Biography:Lortzing was born in Berlin to Johann Gottlieb Lortzing and Charlotte Sophie...

. The German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 libretto was by the composer after Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué

Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué

Friedrich Heinrich Karl de la Motte, Baron Fouqué was a German writer of the romantic style.-Biography:He was born at Brandenburg an der Havel, of a family of French Huguenot origin, as evidenced in his family name...

's story of the same name

Undine (novella)

Undine is a novel by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué in which Undine, a water spirit, marries a knight named Huldebrand in order to gain a soul. It is an early German romance, which has been translated into English and other languages...

.

There had been a revival of interest in Fouqué following the writer's death in 1843 to which Lortzing responded. Unlike Lortzing's earlier comedies, this work is a serious one, described as a romantische Zauberoper ('romantic magic opera').

A number of other operas and ballets have been based on Fouqué's version of the myth of the water spirit Ondine

Ondine (mythology)

Undines , also called ondines, are elementals, enumerated as the water elementals in works of alchemy by Paracelsus. They also appear in European folklore as fairy-like creatures; the name may be used interchangeably with those of other water spirits. Undines are said to be able to gain a soul by...

, including Tchaikovsky's Undina

Undina (Tchaikovsky)

Undina is an opera in 3 acts by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The work was composed in 1869. The libretto was written by Vladimir Sollogub, and is based on Vasily Zhukovsky's translation of Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué's Ondine.The opera was composed during the months of January to July, 1869, but...

, E T A Hoffmann's Undine

Undine (Hoffmann)

Undine is an opera in three acts by the German composer and author E.T.A. Hoffmann. The libretto, by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué, is based on his own story Undine. It received its premiere at the Königliches Schauspielhaus, Berlin on 3 August, 1816. Undine was Hoffmann's greatest operatic success...

, Cesare Pugni

Cesare Pugni

Cesare Pugni was an Italian composer of ballet music, a pianist and a violinist. In his early career he composed operas, symphonies, and various other forms of orchestral music. Pugni is most noted for the ballets he composed while serving as Composer of the Ballet Music to Her Majesty's Theatre...

's Ondine

Ondine (ballet)

Ondine, ou La naïade is a ballet with choreography by Jules Perrot and music by Cesare Pugni, with a libretto inspired by the novel Undine by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué. Pugni dedicated his score to the Duchess of Cambridge, Princess Augusta, a long-time balletomane and patron of the arts in...

and Hans Werner Henze

Hans Werner Henze

Hans Werner Henze is a German composer of prodigious output best known for "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life"...

's Undine.

Performance history

The opera was first performed at the Nationaltheater in Magdeburg

Magdeburg

Magdeburg , is the largest city and the capital city of the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Magdeburg is situated on the Elbe River and was one of the most important medieval cities of Europe....

, on 21 April 1845.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere Cast, April 21, 1845. (Conductor: -)
Bertalda, presumed daughter of Duke Heinrich	soprano Soprano A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...	Beer
Hans, a cellarer	bass
Hugo von Ringstetten	tenor Tenor The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...	Nissen
Kühleborn, prince of the water spirits	baritone Baritone Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...	Werlitz
Marthe	contralto Contralto Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...	Detroit
Pater Heilmann	bass
Tobias, a fisherman	bass
Undine, Tobias's adopted daughter	soprano	Marie Minna Kiel
Veit, Ringstetten's squire	tenor	Quint

Recordings

• 1951 - Trude Eipperle
  Trude Eipperle
  Trude Eipperle was a German operatic soprano.She studied at the Musikhochschule in her native Stuttgart, and made her stage debut in Wiesbaden, in 1930. She sang in Nuremberg , Brunswick , Munich , Cologne , and Stuttgart from 1951 onwards...
  
   (Undine), Christa Ludwig
  Christa Ludwig
  Christa Ludwig is a retired German mezzo-soprano, distinguished for her performances of opera, Lieder, oratorio and other major religious works like masses and passions, and solos contained in symphonic literature...
  
   (Bertalda), Else Tegetthoff (Martha), Karl Friedrich (Hugo), Ferdinand Frantz
  Ferdinand Frantz
  Ferdinand Frantz , was a German operatic bass-baritone. He was well known in his time for his performances in the operas of Richard Wagner....
  
  (Kuhleborn), Willy Hofmann (Veit), Frithjof Sentpaul (Tobias), Aage Poulsen (Pater Heilmann), Sanders Schier (Hans) - Chor und Sinfonieorchester des Hessischen Rundfunks Frankfurt, Carl-Alexander Hafner - (Cantus-Lin)