Alberich (opera character)
Alberich is the great antagonist in the tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen by the German composer Richard Wagner .
In the first part of the cycle - the evening before Das Rheingold - the audience encounters Alberich with both eager and unsuccessful courtship for the Rhine daughters . The ugly dwarf, clumsy in the element of water, just seems strange to them; they don't take his threats seriously. When Alberich's anger at the experienced rejection reaches its peak, the gold hidden in the depths of the Rhine shines in the glow of the rising sun. Alberich learns from the Rhine daughters that whoever could get the gold and cursed love would be able to forge a ring through which he could subjugate the world. The ring helps to "immoderate power".
Still under the impression of the mockery by the Rhine daughters, Alberich curses love, grabs the gold and disappears into the depths: "If I don't win love - but cunningly I force pleasure!"
The audience later learns that Alberich actually forged the powerful ring in his subterranean home, Nibelheim, and with its help he was the first to subjugate his own people, the Nibelungs . These, above all Alberich's brother Mime , now have to eagerly dig for ore and mineral resources and use them to make artistic jewelery in order to amass Alberich's huge Nibelungen hoard.
In the meantime the giants Fasolt and Fafner had built Valhalla Castle for Wotan and the gods . After tough negotiations about the purchase price, the giants agree to accept Alberich's gold as wages.
In the third scene of the Rheingold, Wotan and Loge ( Loki ) move to Nibelheim to steal the gold from Alberich. Alberich himself scornfully reports to them that with the help of the ring he wants to submit the entire world, including the gods. Cunningly persuades Loge Alberich to demonstrate the use of the camouflage helmet , with whose magic its owner can assume any shape. When Alberich temporarily turns into a toad, Wotan and Loge manage to catch the dwarf. They demand from him the Nibelung treasure, tarn helmet and ring as ransom. After all, Alberich has to give up everything. In a gloomy, threatening monologue, he curses the stolen ring: "... Whoever owns it see worry and who does not have it, gnaw the envy ..." This curse proves to be powerful and consequential, it continues to work until the twilight of the gods with downfall Wotans and the rule of the gods.
After his disappearance in the Rheingold, the audience did not meet Alberich for a long time. A story by Wotan (in Die Walküre ) shows that Alberich succeeded in fathering a son - Hagen . Alberich reappears personally in the third part of the Ring des Nibelungen ( Siegfried ). Like his brother and now competitor Mime, he lurks in front of Fafner's cave - Envy Cave - for the result of the fight between Siegfried and Fafner, who has been transformed into a dragon. As Wotan scornfully remarks in the form of the wanderer: "A hero approaches - two niblings skimp on gold."
In Götterdämmerung, Alberich then only has an indirect effect on the events around the ring via Hagen, from which he cannot leave. Hagen dies at the end of the plot, and the audience does not learn anything more from Alberich. However, since he linked his entire existence with the fate of the ring and it was returned to the Rhine daughters by Brünnhilde , this survival is meaningless and no longer associated with any danger.
The most famous interpreter of this role was Gustav Neidlinger . He shaped this role for several decades on stage and in recordings. In the first performance in 1876, at the first Bayreuth Festival , Alberich was cast with the baritone Karl Fischer .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Alberich at www.richard-wagner.org , accessed on November 15, 2018