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Donald Macleod follows Humperdinck through his final years including a trip to London for The Miracle.

German composer, Engelbert Humperdinck, became an international celebrity with his music for the stage. His lasting hit was his opera, Hansel and Gretel, which is featured in its entirety across this week. There were other huge successes too. Die Heirat wider Willen (The Reluctant Marriage) was highly praised after its premiere at the Royal Opera in Berlin, and Humperdinck took 19 curtain calls in London for his stage work Das Wunder (The Miracle). In New York, at the Metropolitan Opera House, after the premiere of Humperdinck’s opera Königskinder (King's Children), the applause just kept going so that the management had to turn the lights off, in order to force the audience to leave.

Humperdinck was born in Siegburg, and from early on his parents encouraged his musical abilities, provided he focused on his other school commitments, too. He went on to study at the Cologne Conservatoire and soon fell under the spell of Wagner whom he met, and later worked with, in the preparation of Wagner’s opera, Parsifal. Humperdinck travelled Europe, and in the early 1890s he saw the premiere of his own opera Hansel and Gretel, which was performed on sixty-nine German stages within one year. Humperdinck became a professor of composition in Berlin and, between his teaching duties, he continued to write many works for the stage. Opera houses clambered to give the premiere of a new work by Humperdinck and he became a giant of his times. It is his opera Hansel and Gretel for which he is remembered today.

Humperdinck’s final years were marked by a number of periods of illness, including a stroke which left him paralysed down one side of his body. There were great successes too, including a visit to London for the premiere of his stage work Das Wunder, or The Miracle, where Humperdinck received 19 curtain calls. His opera Königskinder had now been premiered and, although critical reception had been mixed, German theatres mounted a total of 171 performances in a single season. Humperdinck died in 1921, five years after losing his wife, Hedwig, and following a series of further strokes. He died an international celebrity and at his graveside one of his students sang the Fiddler’s Song from his opera Königskinder.

Winterlied
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, soprano
Michael Raucheisen, piano

Shakespeare Suite No 1 (Ferdinand und Miranda)
Bamberger Symphonic Orchestra
Karl Anton Rickenbacher, conductor

Die Lerche II
Christina Landshamer, soprano
Hinrich Alpers, piano

Verratene Liebe
Christina Landshamer, soprano
Hinrich Alpers, piano

Unter der Linden
Christina Landshamer, soprano
Hinrich Alpers, piano

Hansel and Gretel (excerpt)
Jennifer Larmore (Hansel), mezzo-soprano
Ruth Ziesak (Gretel), soprano
Hildegard Behrens (Gertrud), soprano
Hanna Schwarz (The Witch), mezzo-soprano
Bernd Weikl (Peter), baritone
Tölzer Knabenchor
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
Donald Runnicles, conductor

Das Wunder (excerpt)
Malmö Opera Orchestra
Dario Salvi, conductor

String Quartet in C (Lebhaft)
Diogenes Quartet

Produced by Luke Whitlock