About the work
Undine is a magic opera in three acts by E. T. A. Hoffmann on a libretto by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué, who adapted his own 1811 fairy tale for the stage. Hoffmann composed the work between 1812 and 1816, with stage designs by Karl Friedrich Schinkel; it premiered on 3 August 1816 at the Royal Theatre in Berlin to mark the birthday of King Friedrich Wilhelm III, and received thirteen further performances before the theatre burned down in 1817.
Plot
The water sprite Undine grows up with a fisherman's family and marries the knight Huldbrand von Ringstetten, thereby gaining a human soul. When Huldbrand betrays her for Bertalda and is cursed for it, Undine must return to her watery realm — on the night of his second wedding she returns and kills him with a kiss.
Cultural significance
Undine is regarded as the first German Romantic opera and a forerunner of Weber's Der Freischütz. Carl Maria von Weber himself praised it as 'one of the most inspired works that recent times have given us'; Hoffmann's tone-painting of the spirit world resonated as far as Wagner's Lohengrin.