The Amber Witch (opera)

The Amber Witch
Opera by William Vincent Wallace
The composer between 1855 and 1865
Librettist	Henry Fothergill Chorley
Based on	Maria Schweidler: Die Bernsteinhexe by Johannes Wilhelm Meinhold
Premiere	28 February 1861 (1861-02-28) Her Majesty's Theatre, London

The Amber Witch is an opera four acts composed by William Vincent Wallace to an English libretto by Henry Fothergill Chorley, after Lady Duff-Gordon's translation of Meinold's Maria Schweidler: Die Bernsteinhexe.

It premiered at Her Majesty's Theatre, London on 28 February 1861 conducted by Charles Hallé with Helen Lemmens-Sherrington in the title role.

The libretto was based on a Gothic novel by Johann Wilhelm Meinhold, Maria Schweidler die Bernsteinhexe, which had been translated into English by Lady Duff-Gordon and published in 1844 as The Amber Witch. The work was very popular in Victorian England and had gone through several editions by the time Wallace chose it as the subject for his fourth and most ambitious opera. The novel, unlike the opera is on which it was based, retained its popularity and continued to be published both on its own and in anthologies into the 21st century. It was a favourite of Oscar Wilde's when he was a boy, and in 1895 it was published in a luxury edition illustrated by Philip Burne-Jones.

Wallace had sketched out most of the opera in 1860, and it premiered at Her Majesty's Theatre on 28 February 1861 with Charles Hallé conducting.The Times reported that the first night's performance was a success and that "the music is almost as complicated as it is beautiful". Wallace considered it his best opera, and Queen Victoria attended one of the early performances, but it met with only mixed success with audiences. After its run at Her Majesty's Theatre, it transferred to the Theatre Royal Drury Lane with most of the original cast, including Charles Santley. (Euphrosyne Parepa-Rosa replaced Helen Lemmens-Sherrington in the title role.) Santley recalled in his memoirs that although The Amber Witch contained some fine music, it played to nearly empty houses at Drury Lane.