The Ruby (Opera)

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Work data
Title: The ruby
Original title: The ruby
Original language: German
Music: Eugen d'Albert
Libretto : Eugen d'Albert
Literary source: The ruby by Friedrich Hebbel
Premiere: October 12, 1893
Place of premiere: Karlsruhe
Place and time of the action: Baghdad, in the old days
people

The ruby is a musical fairy tale in two acts by Eugen d'Albert using the fairy tale of the same name by Friedrich Hebbel . The opera premiered on October 12, 1893 at the Karlsruhe Court Theater .

action

first act

The poor fisherman's son Asaf gets into an argument with his friend Hakam because he has stolen. They break up. A dream once announced power and splendor to him. The vizier appears and reports that the caliph promises the crown to him who brings back the mysteriously disappeared Princess Bedura. After the people got lost, the jeweler Soliman shows the young Asaf his treasures, and he, enchanted by a ruby, seizes the precious stone and does not want to give it back when the kadi comes with the hangman and sentenced him to death. At the moment when he is about to be brought to the place of execution, the old man Irad appears, takes Asaf's hand and sinks into the earth with him.

Second act

Irad and Asaf are in an underground, grotto-like passage. The old man informs the young man that if he kissed the ruby ​​three times, the princess Bedura would appear to him and disappears. Asaf does as he is told and Bedura shows himself to his eyes. She tells him that a magician, whose unreasonable demands she had rejected, put her in the ruby. Her heart opens to the love for Asaf, who can save her, but to whom she is not allowed to tell in which way rescue is possible, because he has to find it out of his own accord. It becomes stone again, and Asaf reaches the upper world near Baghdad. Hakam sees him there. When he greedily reaches for the ruby ​​and Asaf defends him, the kadi becomes aware of Asaf and leads him to the caliph. - Metamorphosis - Asaf is supposed to die, but first surrender the ruby. He refuses and throws the stone into the Tigris. Then Bedura appears, hugs her happy father and praises Asaf as her savior, because by throwing away the precious ruby ​​she is released from the spell. The caliph keeps his word, and since Bedura confesses her love, he unites her with Asaf. At the hand of the aged Irad, he ascends the throne as the new caliph.

literature

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