# Fairytales made Classical music



## Clouds Weep Snowflakes (Feb 24, 2019)

A lot of composers did that-Prokofiev's Cinderella is my favorite of all; anything you would suggest? I'd especially love to see something based off Rapunzel, or maybe even The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen...anything about these two? I know Lou Harrison made an opera about Rapunzel I hope to get; anything else?


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I like fairy tales made into opera, such as Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream.


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## Guest (Aug 11, 2019)

A lot.
Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle
Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker and Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty
Rossini's La Cenerentola
Wagner's Parsifal is rooted in Holy Grail mythology, and his Ring cycle is rooted in Germanic mythology
Many baroque operas draw their subject matter from Greek mythology


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Hansel und Gretel is an extraordinarily accessible masterpiece. Midsummer Night's Dream also, but based on Shakespeare. Ravels' Mother Goose Suite (based on nursery rhymes) is excellent. You must know Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty, also his opera The Snow Maiden. The Sorcerer's Apprentice isn't technically a fairy tale, but sort of is. Folk tales include Grieg/Ibsen's Peer Gynt, Kodaly's Hary Janos, Strauss's Till Eulenspiegel, the Baba Yaga section of Pictures at an Exhibition, Mendelsssohn's Fair Melusina overture, Stravinsky's Fairy's Kiss. Fairy-ish music includes the "Queen Mab" scherzo from Berlioz' Romeo and Juliet. Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe.

TheN there's Wagner's "Ring."


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I thought we had a thread on this, and look who started it? 

Classical music based on stories/fairytales/ect'


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

A Midsummer Night's Dream is not a fairy tale but a rather more complex comedy. The Magic Flute has more of the fairy tale in it but I don't think it qualifies either. I'm not sure what the definition of a fairy tale is ... but simplicity is surely a part of it.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Enthusiast said:


> A Midsummer Night's Dream is not a fairy tale but a rather more complex comedy. The Magic Flute has more of the fairy tale in it but I don't think it qualifies either. I'm not sure what the definition of a fairy tale is ... but simplicity is surely a part of it.


Who knows? From fairy tale to fantasy fiction, where do we draw the line?


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Dvorak composed some tone poems on collected fairy tales - Golden Spinning Wheel, Noonday Witch, Water Goblin, Wild Dove, etc...


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Enthusiast said:


> A Midsummer Night's Dream is not a fairy tale but a rather more complex comedy. The Magic Flute has more of the fairy tale in it but I don't think it qualifies either. I'm not sure what the definition of a fairy tale is ... but simplicity is surely a part of it.


Well, Midsummer does have fairies . . .

I mentioned The Cunning Little Vixen in a similar thread. Not quite a fairy tale, but lots of singing animals. Surprised Disney hasn't done a version. Maurice Sendak did illustrationns (and, I think, a design for an opera production).


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

"Surprised Disney hasn't done a version. "

Please please don't ever let this happen!!!


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