Lortzing was the most important German composer before Wagner to write his own librettos. He preferred to draw his material from obscure plays or other sources; regarding the selection of subject matter, Lortzing once wrote, "I would make no other general rule, except not to grasp at easily accessible classical pieces...Forgotten sources, like Der Bürgermeister von Saardam...one can make something of them." For Undine, Lortzing fashioned his libretto after a story of the same name by Carl de la Motte Fouqué.

Fouqué' death in 1843 may have prompted Lortzing to stray from comic opera into the realm of Zauberoper ("magic" or "fairy" opera); it was a daring move for Lortzing, whose earlier successes had all been comedies. Lortzing made important alterations and additions to Fouqué's original, most significantly the creation of two new characters, Veit and Hans. Undoubtedly, Lortzing invented these characters to give his comic impulse an outlet while treating the other principal characters, Ringstetten, Undine, Kühleborn and Bertalda, in a strictly serious manner. This differs from his approach in his earlier Hans Sachs, in which he combined comic and serious elements within each character. The result, in Undine, is Lortzing's most sober and musically substantial work up to this point in his career.

Undine was first performed on April 21, 1845, at the National Theater in Magdeburg. The opera was moderately successful, spreading throughout German-speaking lands in the first five years after the premiere. In Undine, Lortzing expands his use of "reminiscence motive" beyond what we find in any of his other works, approaching the idea of "leitmotif." The motive that opens the overture turns out to be representative of Kühleborn, and appears numerous times in the course of the work, even when the character is not onstage. Undine, too, is provided with her own, cheerful theme. Also, Lortzing experiments with chromatic harmony to a greater degree than in any of his earlier works. At times in Undine he strays from his normally even phrase lengths into a more expressive idiom. Lortzing's next "fairy opera," Rolands Knappen, oder Das ersehnte Glück, further develops this type of writing.

Lortzing, a perceptive, eclectic composer, combines disparate modes of expression in Undine both to develop his characters and to create sentiment. The role of Undine achieves its vocal highpoint in the recitative and aria, "So wisse, dass in alle Elementen" (Know that in all elements), with its characteristic shift between declamatory writing and arioso. The scene is the nearest Lortzing comes to his Romantic models and represents an important departure for the composer, who was not fond of anything like recitative and preferred dialogue to advance the plot between musical numbers. In contrast, the simple sound of the spirit of German song becomes apparent in Undine's farewell to her homeland at the end of the first act, "Ich scheide nun aus eurer Mitte" (I now part from your midst). Of the same ilk is Kühleborn's "O kehr zurück" (Oh, come back), the most popular number from the opera.

The acknowledged master of comic opera in his time, Lortzing distributes his comic elements among only two buffoonish characters: Hans and Veit. Veit's "Vater, Mutter, Schwestern, Brüder" (Father, mother, sisters, brother) and the drinking song he sings with Hans, "Im Wein ist Wahrheit nur allein" (Truth exists only in wine), are straightforward songs with universal appeal. Where Lortzing strives toward the grand style of romantic opera, he comes up against the borders of his own, natural talents.

© John Palmer, Rovi