Adelheid Wette
Adelheid Catharina Maria Humperdinck Wette (4 September 1858 – 9 August 1916)[1] was a German author, composer, and folklorist who is best remembered today as the librettist of her brother Engelbert Humperdinck's opera Hansel and Gretel.
Life and career
[edit | edit source]Wette was born in Siegburg, Kingdom of Prussia, the youngest sister of the composer Engelbert Humperdinck.[2] Her parents were Gustav Humperdinck, a high school teacher, and Gertrud Hartmann Humperdinck, the daughter of a cantor.[3] Adelheid was very interested in reading folktales and writing poetry.[4] In 1881, she married Dr. Hermann Wette[5] who shared her interest in folktales and had himself written two libretti for the composer Arnold Mendelssohn.[6]
Every year, Adelheid Wette wrote a play for her children to perform at a family celebration.[7] In 1888, she wrote the libretto to Engelbert's singspiel Snow White.[1]
In 1890, Adelheid wrote a version of Hansel and Gretel to be performed for her husband's birthday in May. In a letter to Engelbert in April, she asked him to compose music for five of her verses to use in the play: a cock-a-doodle-doo song (Lied); a dance song (Tanzlied); an echo song (Echolied); a forest song (Waldlied); and a lullaby (Schlummerlied). She included rhythmic suggestions for the dance song and suggested a melody of the lullaby.[8] Engelbert responded with an arrangement of songs for two voices and piano. When he adapted the folk song “Brother Come and Dance with Me” for a duet between Hänsel and Gretel in the first act, Adelheid modified the song by omitting the fifth stanza and re-arranging some lines. Over the next two years, with Adelheid and Hermann Wette's assistance,[1] Engelbert expanded Hansel and Gretel into a fully scored opera which premiered in Weimar, Germany,[9] on 23 December 1893,[10] and remains his best-known composition.
Wette's works include:
Stage works
[edit | edit source]- Frog King (1896)[11]
- Hansel and Gretel (libretto); in English: Hänsel and Gretel: a fairy opera adapted from the libretto, translated Norreys J. O’Conor, illustrated by M. L. Kirk (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co., 1909)
- Snow White and the Seven Dwarves[1](libretto)
Poetry
[edit | edit source]- "Abends will ich schlafen gehn" [In the Evening, I Will Go to Sleep][12]
Songs
[edit | edit source]- Deutsches Kinderliederbuch [German Children's Songbook] (1903)[13]
References
[edit | edit source]- ^ a b c d Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). (subscription, Wikilibrary access, or UK public library membership required)
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).[page needed]
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
External links
[edit | edit source]Lua error in mw.title.lua at line 392: bad argument #2 to 'title.new' (unrecognized namespace name 'Portal'). Lua error in Module:Authority_control at line 153: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).