FULL UNDINA (Tchaikovsky) Cincinnati OH 2023 Erin Keesy Struj, K. Michael Young, Tess Klibanoff Gulbrand, M. Andrew Jones

Information on the Performance

• Work Title: Undina  
• Composer: Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich   
• Libretto: Rebecca Whitehurst, edited by Simon Barrad    Libretto Text, Libretto Index
• Venue & Opera Company: Finneytown Performing Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, Queen City Opera  
• Recorded: October 7, 2023
• Type: Staged Opera Live
• Singers: Erin Keesy Struj, K. Michael Young, Tess Klibanoff Gulbrand, M. Andrew Jones
• Conductor: Isaac Selya  
• Orchestra:
• Stage Director: Rebecca Herman  
• Stage Designer: Kenneth Shaw, Bob Doak  
• Costume Designer:   

Information about the Recording

• Published by: Queen City Opera  
• Date Published: 2025  
• Format: Streaming
• Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
• Subtitles: yessubs, ensubs  

• ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE

  In 1869, Pyotr Tchaikovsky composed an opera called Undina, about a community that disrespects the sea and experiences catastrophic flooding. Tchaikovsky was highly self-critical, and he destroyed the finished opera. When he died in 1893, all that survived of the opera were some sketches and some fragments in the form of orchestral parts used for a concert of excerpts. Tchaikovsky recycled some of the music intended for Undina into some of his most famous works, including Swan Lake.

  Queen City Opera Artistic Director Dr. Isaac M. Selya has spent the last three years reconstructing the opera using other works by Tchaikovsky to devise a world premiere pastiche completion, producing an 85-minute opera focusing on ocean conservancy and sustainable energy production.

  New Libretto by Rebecca Whitehurst, edited by Simon Barrad

  Undina (sometimes Undine or Ondine) (Russian: Ундина listenⓘ) is an opera in three acts by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The work was composed in 1869. The libretto was written by Vladimir Sollogub, and is based on Vasily Zhukovsky’s translation of Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué’s novella Ondine.

  The opera was composed during the months of January to July 1869, but Tchaikovsky destroyed the score in 1873, preserving only a few numbers from the opera. The opera has never been performed in its entirety.

  The only extracts that survive are:

  Introduction
  Aria: “Waterfall, my uncle, streamlet, my brother” (Undina)
  Chorus: “Help, help! Our stream is raging”
  Duet: “O happiness, O blessed moment” (Undina, Huldbrand)
  Chorus: “O hours of death” (soloists, chorus)
  At least three of these pieces – the aria, the duet, and the final chorus – were performed at the Moscow premiere at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow on 28 March 1870.

  Some music from the opera was subsequently re-used in Tchaikovsky’s other works:

  The bridal procession of act 3 was adapted for the Andantino marziale of his Symphony No. 2 “Little Russian” (1872).
  The introduction was used unchanged as the introduction to his incidental music to Ostrovsky’s play The Snow Maiden (1873).
  Undina’s aria was somewhat altered and put to use as the first song of Lel in The Snow Maiden.
  The duet was recycled as the duet (No. 13-V) of Siegfried and Odette in act 2 of Swan Lake (1875–1876). The vocal parts were replaced by solo cello and violin.
  Quoted from Wikipedia

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