Humperdinck is remembered for his first opera, the much-loved Hänsel and Gretel; his later, more ambitious operas never quite succeeded in gaining a firm place in repertory. He began his musical education with piano lessons at the age of seven. His first experience of opera was in 1868 when he heard Lortzing's Undine. The consequences were immediate: in the same year he began working on two Singspiels, Perla and Claudine von Villa Bella, and on the music drama Harziperes. In later life Humperdinck continued to refer to Lortzing as one of his models. His father was alarmed by these distractions from serious study, but on the enthusiastic advice of the composer Ferdinand Hiller, he agreed to let his son enter the Cologne Conservatory in 1872. Humperdinck was most successful as a music student, winning the Mozart Prize of Frankfurt in 1876, the Mendelssohn Prize of Berlin in 1879 and the Meyerbeer Prize of Berlin in 1881. When he moved to the Munich Konigliche Musikschule in 1877 new influences began to disturb his adherence to the Schumannesque traditions of his teachers. He heard Wagner's Ring in 1878 and joined the Munich Wagnerian society ‘Orden vom Gral.’ A visit to Wagner in 1880 during Humperdinck's scholarship tour of Italy proved even more decisive; Wagner invited him to come to Bayreuth in 1881 to help with the first production of Parsifal. Though friends feared such contact would inhibit Humperdinck's creativity, the composer said he would willingly give up originality if it meant he could write choruses like those in Parsifal. He also pointed out that there were lighter sides to Wagner's writing not incompatible with his own more Mendelssohnian inclinations.

It was ten years before Humperdinck was able to show the fruit of these new influences. Although he successfully pursued his career as a teacher and critic, becoming a lecturer at the Cologne Conservatory in 1887 and later at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, all his operatic plans came to nothing. Significantly, the inhibition caused by Wagner was overcome by a request from Humperdinck's sister, Adelheid Wette, to set some folksongs for Hänsel and Gretel. The simplicity of the proposal suited the composer's unpretentious nature. As Hänsel and Gretel developed from folksongs to Singspiel and finally to opera, the composer began to question the aesthetic wisdom of his choice. The public's response to the work, however, confirmed that its spontaneity and naivety were among its greatest assets.

The immense success of Hänsel and Gretel proved difficult for Humperdinck to follow. At first he continued to produce works in the fairy-tale genre, including Die sieben Geislein, Konigskinder, and the Sleeping Beauty story Dornroschen. But he never matched the success of Hänsel and Gretel and turned to comic opera. Neither Die Heirat wider Willen, Die Marketenderin nor Das Mirakel met with much success. While the adaptation of his own Konigskinderfrom melodrama to opera met with critical acclaim, it never matched the popularity of Hänsel and Gretel, which remains his musical legacy.