Undine
Undine.The earliest literary representations of the Undine fairy tale are Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué's Undine. Eine Erzählung (1811) and E. T. A. Hoffmann's opera Undine. Zauberopera in drei Akten (1812–14). Tchaikovsky wrote and destroyed an opera on the theme (1869). In the 20th century reworkings include Jean Giraudoux's Ondine (1938), Hans Werner Henze's ballet Undine (1956), and Ingeborg Bachmann's ‘Undine geht’ (1961).
The Undine plot involves a water sprite who surfaces to marry a human being to gain a soul, which elemental spirits do not have. Her marriage with the knight Huldbrand ends badly on account of Huldbrand's indiscretion in marrying his ex‐girlfriend after Undine has returned to the water, on the one hand, and the intercession of Undine's cranky...
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