Adelheid Wette

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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]

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]

Poetry[edit]

  • "Abends will ich schlafen gehn" [In the Evening, I Will Go to Sleep][12]

Songs[edit]

  • Deutsches Kinderliederbuch [German Children's Songbook] (1903)[13]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d "Adelheid Wette biography". last.fm. Retrieved 2020-09-18.
  2. ^ "The Metropolitan Opera Guild" (PDF). www.metguild.org. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2020-07-23. Retrieved 2020-09-18.
  3. ^ Wette, Adelheid 1858-1916 (2 July 2013). Hänsel und Gretel Märchenspiel in drei Bildern. Guth, Karl-Maria (1. Auflage ed.). Berlin. ISBN 978-3-8430-2005-3. OCLC 968225582.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  4. ^ Fisher, Burton D. (2000-02-15). Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel. Opera Journeys Publishing. ISBN 978-1-102-00907-8.
  5. ^ Wilhelm Kosch, ed. (2011). "Wette, Adelheid". Deutsches Literatur-Lexikon [German Literature Lexicon] (in German). Vol. 31 (Werenberg–Wieding). Walter de Gruyter. col. 381. ISBN 9783110235722.
  6. ^ Glauert, Amanda (2002). "Wette [née Humperdinck], Adelheid". Grove Music Online (8th ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.O003525. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0.
  7. ^ Grun, Bernard (1955). Private Lives of the Great Composers, Conductors and Musical Artistes of the World. Library Publishers.
  8. ^ "Hänsel und Gretel". Schott Music. Retrieved 24 July 2022.
  9. ^ "Hänsel und Gretel (Work – Engelbert Humperdinck/Adelheid Wette)". opera-online.com. Retrieved 2020-09-18.
  10. ^ "Hansel and Gretel". University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance. Retrieved 2020-09-18.
  11. ^ Cohen, Aaron I. (1987). International Encyclopedia of Women Composers (Second edition, revised and enlarged ed.). New York. ISBN 0-9617485-2-4. OCLC 16714846.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)[page needed]
  12. ^ "Sammlung deutscher Gedichte 028". www.goodreads.com. Retrieved 2020-09-18.
  13. ^ "Adelheid Wette". Royal Opera House. Retrieved 2020-09-18.

External links[edit]

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