HUMPERDINCK AND WAGNER
ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK
Wagner held myth to be the best subject for the lyric drama; Humperdinck has extended the principle to include fairy tales, which, in a sense, may be said to be decayed myths. Taking the German form of the story of the Babes in the Wood, he has turned it into an opera which illustrates the methods Wagner employed in his great mythological tragedy, “The Nibelung’s Ring,” and has given the methods a peculiar charm by making his musical symbols (Leitmotiven) out of nursery jingles and tunes like them. Notwithstanding that he was thus hewing to a line drawn by another, the opera has a melodic fluency and freshness which have scarcely a parallel in modern opera. A later work “Königskinder” (Royal Children), though full of beauty, lacks the spontaneity and charm of its predecessor largely because its book is stilted in language, its symbolism too much in evidence and not sufficiently sympathetic, and its construction faulty.