About the work
Das Christ-Elflein is a Christmas opera by Hans Pfitzner after a text by Ilse von Stach. The first version, conceived as incidental music of melodramas and song-like numbers, premiered on 11 December 1906 under Felix Mottl at the Munich Court Opera; in 1917 Pfitzner reworked it into a self-contained two-act opera, which opened in Dresden on 11 December 1917.
Plot
Drawn by the sound of Christmas bells and carols, an elf leaves its forest home for the human world despite the old fir tree’s warnings. It experiences cold, sickness and grief, and finally offers itself in place of the dying girl Trautchen. The Christ Child accepts the exchange, Trautchen recovers, and the elf is thereafter allowed to come down to earth each Christmas as the Christ-Elflein.
Cultural significance
The original 1906 version failed, largely blamed on a weak libretto; only the musically expanded 1917 opera version, reminiscent of Humperdinck’s “Hänsel und Gretel,” secured the piece a lasting place as a Christmas opera on German stages.