Engelbert Humperdinck (German: [ˈɛŋl̩bɛʁt ˈhʊmpɐdɪŋk]; 1 September 1854 – 27 September 1921) was a German composer of opera. He is best known for his opera Hansel and Gretel (1893).
Humperdinck was born in Siegburg in the Rhine Province in 1854. After receiving piano lessons, he produced his first composition at the age of seven. His first attempts at works for the stage were two singspiele written when he was 13. His parents disapproved of his plans for a career in music and encouraged him to study architecture.
But he began taking music classes under Ferdinand Hiller and Isidor Seiss at the Cologne Conservatory in 1872. In 1876, he won a scholarship that enabled him to go to Munich, where he studied with Franz Lachner and later with Josef Rheinberger. In 1879, he won the first Mendelssohn Award given by the Mendelssohn Stiftung (foundation) in Berlin.
He went to Italy, where he became acquainted with composer Richard Wagner in Naples. Wagner invited him to join him in Bayreuth, and during 1880 and 1881 Humperdinck assisted in the production of Parsifal. He also served as music tutor to Wagner's son, Siegfried.
After winning another prize, Humperdinck traveled through Italy, France, and Spain. For two years, he taught at the Gran Teatre del Liceu Conservatory in Barcelona. In 1887, he returned to Cologne. He was appointed professor at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt in 1890 and also teacher of harmony at Julius Stockhausen's Vocal School. By this time he had composed several works for chorus and a Humoreske for small orchestra, which became very popular in Germany.
Humperdinck's reputation rests chiefly on his opera Hänsel und Gretel, on which he began work in Frankfurt in 1890. He first composed four songs to accompany a puppet show his nieces were giving at home. Then, using a libretto and thematic suggestions by his sister Adelheid Wette, rather loosely based on the version of the fairy tale by the Grimm Brothers, he composed a singspiel of 16 songs with piano accompaniment and connecting dialogue. By January 1891, he had begun working on a complete orchestration.
The opera was premiered in Weimar on 23 December 1893, conducted by Richard Strauss. With its synthesis of Wagnerian techniques and traditional German folk songs, Hansel and Gretel was an instant success.
Hansel and Gretel has always been Humperdinck's most popular work. In 1923, the Royal Opera House (London) chose it for their first complete radio opera broadcast. Eight years later, it was the first opera transmitted live from the Metropolitan Opera (New York).
In 1896, Kaiser Wilhelm II made Humperdinck a Professor and he went to live in Boppard, Rhineland-Palatinate. Four years later, he went to Berlin, where he was appointed head of a Meister-Schule of composition. His students included Basque composer Andrés Isasi, Portuguese composer Luís de Freitas Branco, Hildegard Quiel, and Kurt Weill.
Among Humperdinck's other stage works are:
Die sieben Geißlein (The Seven Little Kids), 1895
Königskinder (King's Children), 1897, 1910
Dornröschen (Sleeping Beauty), 1902
Die Heirat wider Willen (The Reluctant Marriage), 1905
Bübchens Weihnachtstraum (The Christmas Dream), 1906
Die Marketenderin (The Provisioner), 1914
Gaudeamus: Szenen aus dem deutschen Studentenleben (Gaudeamus igitur: Scenes from German Student Life), 1919
While composing those works, Humperdinck held various teaching positions of distinction. He also collaborated in the theater, providing incidental music for a number of Max Reinhardt's productions in Berlin: for example, Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice in 1905.