Adelheid Catharina Maria Humperdinck Wette (4 September 1858 – 9 August 1916) was a German author, composer, and folklorist who is best remembered today as the

librettist A libretto (Italian for "booklet") is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major litu ...

of her brother Engelbert Humperdinck's opera ''

Hansel and Gretel "Hansel and Gretel" (; german: Hänsel und Gretel ) is a German fairy tale collected by the German Brothers Grimm and published in 1812 in ''Grimm's Fairy Tales'' (KHM 15). It is also known as Little Step Brother and Little Step Sister. Hansel ...

''.

Life and career

Wette was born in

Siegburg Siegburg (i.e. ''fort on the Sieg river''; Ripuarian: ''Sieburch'') is a city in the district of Rhein-Sieg-Kreis in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located on the banks of the rivers Sieg and Agger, 10 kilometres from the former seat of ...

, Germany, the youngest sister of the composer Engelbert Humperdinck. Her parents were Gustav Humperdinck, a high school teacher, and Gertrud Hartmann Humperdinck, the daughter of a cantor. Adelheid was very interested in reading folktales and writing poetry. In 1881, she married Dr. Hermann Wette who shared her interest in folktales and had himself written two libretti for the composer

Arnold Mendelssohn Bust of Arnold Mendelssohn, at the Holy Trinity Community Cemetery, Berlin Arnold Ludwig Mendelssohn (26 December 1855 – 18 February 1933), was a German composer and music teacher. He was born in Ratibor, Province of Silesia; the son of Feli ...

. Every year, Adelheid Wette wrote a play for her children to perform at a family celebration. In 1888, she wrote the libretto to Engelbert's

singspiel A Singspiel (; plural: ; ) is a form of German-language music drama, now regarded as a genre of opera. It is characterized by spoken dialogue, which is alternated with ensembles, songs, ballads, and arias which were often strophic, or folk-like ...

Snow White "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is a 19th-century German fairy tale that is today known widely across the Western world. The Brothers Grimm published it in 1812 in the first edition of their collection ''Grimms' Fairy Tales'' and numbered as Ta ...

''. In 1890, Adelheid wrote a version of ''Hansel and Gretel'' to be performed for her husband's birthday in May. In a letter to Engelbert in April, she asked him to compose music for five of her verses to use in the play: a cock-a-doodle-doo song (''Lied''); a dance song (''Tanzlied''); an echo song (''Echolied''); a forest song (''Waldlied''); and a lullaby (''Schlummerlied''). She included rhythmic suggestions for the dance song and suggested a melody of the lullaby. Engelbert responded with an

arrangement In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orches ...

of songs for two voices and piano. When he adapted the folk song “ Brother Come and Dance with Me” for a duet between Hänsel and Gretel in the first act, Adelheid modified the song by omitting the fifth stanza and re-arranging some lines. Over the next two years, with Adelheid and Hermann Wette's assistance, Engelbert expanded ''Hansel and Gretel'' into a fully-scored opera which premiered in

Weimar Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouri ...

, Germany, on 23 December 1893, and remains his best-known composition. Wette's works include:

Stage works

*''Frog King'' (1896) *''Hansel and Gretel'' (libretto); in English: ''Hänsel and Gretel: a fairy opera adapted from the libretto'', translated Norreys J. O’Conor, illustrated by M. L. Kirk (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co., 1909) *'' Snow White and the Seven Dwarves''(libretto)

Poetry

*"Abends will ich schlafen gehn" n the Evening, I Will Go to Sleep

Songs

*''Deutsches Kinderliederbuch'' erman Children's Songbook(1903)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wette, Adelheid Catharina Maria Humperdinck German women writers German librettists German women composers 1858 births 1916 deaths