Daughter’s Father? On the Image of Kühleborn in the Libretto of "Undine" by Albert Lortzing

Abstract

Recognizing the libretto as a “fully literary problem”, the author analyzes the text of Albert Lortzing’s opera Undine. The subject of the analysis is the father of the title character – the water spirit Kühleborn. His image is constructed with reference to the image of the father of the first half of the nineteenth century and according to Lortzing’s opera convention. The analysis of the libretto aims at proving the thesis that the central character of the opera is Kühleborn, not the title character Undine.