About the work
Drama in three acts by Jean Giraudoux based on the legend of the water nymph Undine as shaped by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué’s 1811 novella "Undine"; the play’s French original title is "Ondine". Louis Jouvet directed the premiere on 27 April 1939 at the Théâtre de l’Athénée in Paris, only months before the outbreak of war.
Plot
The water nymph Undine falls in love with the mortal knight Hans and enters a fateful pact with him. When Hans betrays her with the mortal Bertha, he must die – and Undine forgets him completely, as the pact with the King of the Waters foresaw.
Cultural significance
Giraudoux turns the Romantic legend into a meditation on the divide between humanity and nature; contemporaries also read allusions to the strained Franco-German relationship into a play written only months before the Second World War.