Adelheid Wette (* 4. September 1858 in Siegburg; † 9. August 1916 in Eberstadt war eine deutsche Schriftstellerin und Librettistin. Sie war die Schwester des Komponisten Engelbert Humperdinck und schrieb das Libretto zu dessen Oper Hänsel und Gretel (zusammen mit ihrem Mann Hermann Wette) sowie zu seinem Schneewittchen und Die sieben Geißlein. Werke von ihr sind auch im Deutschen Kinderliederbuch(Perthes, Gotha 1903) enthalten.
Adelheid Wette librettist 1858-1916
Adelheid Wette was born on 4 September 1858 in Siegburg. She was the younger sister of composer Engelbert Humperdinck, and as a writer, had a life-long interest in German folk lore and fairy-tales.
She married a doctor from Cologne, Hermann Wette, in 1881. In 1890 she began a series of folk song librettos. She asked Humperdinck to set four of these for a family entertainment, as he often set items written by her or her father. However, the project grew, and Humperdinck was inspired to turn his sister’s verses into a Singspiel, then into a full opera, Hänsel und Gretel. Adelheid herself expanded the simple story of the two children lost in the woods into the opera we enjoy today, with fully rounded characters living in real-life poverty and facing a serious danger in their lives. The combination of her careful characterisation and her brother’s score full of folk song tunes and high dramatic music ensured the opera premiere in 1893 was both a critical and popular success.
She collaborated again with her brother on the libretto of Die sieben Geislein in 1895, but the project remained a series of songs sung only by the family. Adelheid died in 1916, three years before her husband.
© 2007 Kirsty Young
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