About the work
The Sunken Bell, subtitled A German Fairy-Tale Drama, is Gerhart Hauptmann's first verse play. It broke with his earlier naturalistic style – partly in reaction to the failure of Florian Geyer months before – and is considered his first neo-romantic work. It premiered on 2 December 1896 at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, with incidental music by Max Marschalk.
Plot
Bell-founder Heinrich loses his newly cast bell when it plunges into a mountain lake during transport. Badly hurt, he is nursed and enchanted by the elf-like Rautendelein and leaves his wife and children to live with her in the mountains. His wife Magda drowns herself in the lake and sets the sunken bell ringing; its sound haunts Heinrich as the voice of his conscience until he finally dies in Rautendelein's arms.
Cultural significance
During Hauptmann's lifetime the play was among his most frequently staged works and, around the turn of the century, briefly his most successful.