About the work
Cordelia is a lyric-tragic opera in one act by Conradin Kreutzer, with a libretto by Pius Alexander Wolff. The singer Anna Milder-Hauptmann had asked Kreutzer to set an allegedly true story from 1814 to music; under the title 'Adele von Budoy', she performed the work in Königsberg in 1821. Reworked for the eighteen-year-old Wilhelmine Schröder, the opera was premiered under the title Cordelia on 15 February 1823 at the Kärntnertortheater in Vienna.
Plot
Conceived as a monodrama with choruses, the one-act work centres on the title character Cordelia, surrounded by peasants, shepherds and huntsmen. It is based on a purportedly true incident from 1814 that Anna Milder-Hauptmann had come across in a periodical and suggested to Kreutzer as material for an opera.
Cultural significance
With eighteen-year-old Wilhelmine Schröder in the title role, the opera became an extraordinary success in 1823 and was subsequently staged in Vienna, Dresden, Munich, Amsterdam, Magdeburg and Berlin, among other cities.