(Ger.: ‘fairy-tale opera’).
The origins of Märchenoper were traced by Schmidt back to such works as Baldassare Galuppi’s Il paese della Cuccagna (1750), Laruette’s Cendrillon (1759) and F.-A.D. Philidor’s Le soldat magicien (1760). But the term, and variants such as ‘Feenmärchen’, ‘Märchenspiel’, ‘Volksmärchen’ and ‘Feerie’, more strictly refer to a genre which acquired considerable popularity among German composers of the 19th and early 20th centuries, typical examples being written by Drechsler, Schnyder von Wartensee, Riotte, August Conradi, Sommer, Humperdinck and Siegfried Wagner. Fairy-tale operas were written in other languages too (see Opéra féerie), though the appeal to the German Romantic imagination was uniquely powerful.
Fairies as such are not an obligatory feature of the Märchenoper: an element of the supernatural, the oriental or the irrational may suffice. Simplicity and naivety of treatment, in the manner of a children’s story, are characteristic, though the works are not necessarily intended for a young audience; indeed, the content of the tales is often symbolic and bears a moral message. Occasionally the borderline between fairy-tale and myth or legend is blurred: a work such as Wagner's Siegfried, which contains fairy-tale elements, is clearly close to Märchenoper, as are Weber's Oberon and Marschner's Hans Heiling, though they are not so designated by their composers. There is also an affinity with such genres as Zauberspiel and Zauberoper.
L. Schmidt: Zur Geschichte der Märchen-Oper (Halle, 2/1896)
J.C. Daninger: Sage und Märchen im Musikdrama: eine ästhetische Untersuchung an der Sagen- und Märchenoper des 19. Jahrhunderts (Prague, 1916)
H. Stier-Somlo: Das Grimmsche Märchen als Text für Opern und Spiele (Berlin, 1926)
O. Daube: Siegfried Wagner und die Märchenoper (Leipzig, 1936)
P. Gossett: ‘Fairy-Tale and Opera Buffa: the Genre of Rossini’s La Cenerentola’, La Cenerentola, ed. N. John (London, 1980) [ENO Opera Guide]
P. Pachl: ‘Die Märchenoper der Wagnernachfolge’, Oper und Operntext, ed. J.M. Fischer (Heidelberg, 1985), 131–49
BARRY MILLINGTON