Oberon, the Elfin King, having quarrelled with his fairy partner, vows never to be reconciled to her till he shall find two lovers constant through peril and temptation.  To seek such a pair his ’tricksy spirit,’ Puck, has ranged in vain through the world.  Puck, however, hears the sentence passed on Sir Huon of Bordeaux, a young knight, who, having been insulted by the son of Charlemagne, kills him in single combat, and is for this condemned by the monarch to travel to Bagdad to slay him who sits on the Caliph’s left hand, and to claim his daughter as his bride.  Oberon instantly resolves to make this pair the instruments of his reunion with his queen, and for this purpose he brings up Huon and Sherasmin asleep before him, enamours the knight by showing him Reiza, daughter of the Caliph, in a vision, transports him at his waking to Bagdad, and having given him a magic horn, by the blasts of which he is always to summon the assistance of Oberon, and a cup that fills at pleasure, disappears.  Here Sir Huon rescues a man from a lion, who proves afterwards to be Prince Babekan, who is betrothed to Reiza.  One of the properties of the cup is to detect misconduct.  He offers it to Babekan.

On raising it to his lips the wine turns to flame, and thus proves him a villain.  He attempts to assassinate Huon, but is put to flight.  The knight then learns from an old woman that the princess is to be married next day, but that Reiza has been influenced, like her lover, by a vision, and is resolved to be his alone.  She believes that fate will protect her from her nuptials with Babekan, which are to be solemnized on the next day.  Huon enters, fights with and vanquishes Babekan, and having spell-bound the rest by a blast of the magic horn, he and Sherasmin carry off Reiza and Fatima.  They are soon shipwrecked.  Reiza is captured by pirates on a desert island and brought to Tunis, where she is sold to the Emir and exposed to every temptation, but she remains constant.  Sir Huon, by the order of Oberon, is also conveyed thither.  He undergoes similar trials from Roshana, the jealous wife of the Emir, but proving invulnerable she accuses him to her husband, and he is condemned to be burned on the same pile with Reiza.  They are rescued by Sherasmin, who has the magic horn.  Oberon appears with his queen, whom he has regained by their constancy, and the opera concludes with Charlemagne’s pardon of Huon.

The overture, like that of “Der Freischuetz,” reflects the story, and is universally popular.  Its leading themes are the horn solo, which forms the symphony of Sir Huon’s vision, a short movement from the fairies’ chorus, a martial strain from the last scene in the court of Charlemagne, a passage from Reiza’s scene in the second act, and Puck’s invocation of the spirits.