::2004-25-01
Alberich
By John Weinstock

In the first scene of Richard Wagner’s music drama “The Ring of the Nibelung” Alberich, the dwarf, seizes a piece of raw gold and takes what many have called man’s first step toward consciousness, toward civilization, moving from coexistence within a primitive, harmonious, untrammeled state of nature to control of nature. Such a step, though, carries with it a repression of natural feeling, of instinct and of love. At the core of the Ring is an idea Wagner picked up from the philosophical anarchists, viz. that the pursuit of political power is incompatible with love. This idea, which pervades all of the Ring operas, is presented at the very outset of “Das Rheingold” when Alberich sacrifices love in order to steal the Rhinegold and fashion it into a powerful ring. Alberich is one of the Nibelungs, dwarves who live below ground, are known as clever smiths and are not very good-looking. This important relationship, the aesthetic contrast between the beautiful and the ugly, also occurs in this first scene of the opera cycle. There are three groups of characters in “Das Rheingold”: the gods who have a monopoly on beauty, and the giants and dwarves who are quite the opposite.

Alberich comes upon three lovely, rather naive maidens in the river Rhine who are guarding a lump of raw gold. Bereft of beauty in his ordinary existence he is immediately attracted to these girls. They each lead him on unmercifully so that he wants to get hold of one of them and rape her. But they reject his advances because he is so ugly. When the sun comes out and illuminates the gold they tell Alberich its secret, that someone who is willing to renounce love could turn the gold into a ring with which to rule the world. Since he has failed in his attempt to woo the maidens he heroically renounces love and “rapes” the gold instead. In the second scene Loge informs us that Alberich has indeed magically compressed the gold into a ring and, unmitigated by any semblance of compassion or love, is brutally using it to force his fellow Nibelungs to mine more gold. Alberich lays out the plans for his pursuit of world domination in Scene 3 of the “Das Rheingold”: his real goal is not wealth, rather rule of the world through tyranny. If he cannot achieve love in the normal fashion then at least he will exploit everyone else’s longing for gold by buying sex: Alberich to Wotan and Loge:

“Your greed for gold shall enslave you!
first your men shall yield to my might,
then your lovely women
…
Shall grant to Alberich’s force
what love could not win!”

In Scene 2 of “Das Rheingold” we meet the gods including Wotan, the head god, his wife Fricka and her sister Freia. Wotan has made a pact with the giants whereby they will build him a magnificent castle––Valhalla––that will enhance his prestige and stature as the ruler of the world, a position Alberich plans to challenge. For their end of the bargain the giants are to receive Freia who happens to be the goddess of love. The giants––Fasolt in any case––as underprivileged members of Wotan’s world also feel a lack of beauty in their lives, a situation that possession of Freia would ameliorate. Willing to give up Freia in his own pursuit of power Wotan too has apparently renounced love. When the assembled gods and giants hear Loge report that nothing is of greater worth to a man than woman’s beauty and love but that Alberich has in fact renounced love and created a powerful ring, Wotan and Fricka are immediately struck by what the ring might do for them:

Fricka:
“Could a woman use the golden ring…to charm her lord?”

Wotan:
(as if in a state of increasing enchantment)
“Soon this ring should be Wotan’s.”

Here we have a first demonstration of the envious longing of others for what they do not possess. Freia also happens to tend the golden apples that are necessary for the gods to maintain their eternal youth, and when the giants take her hostage while awaiting an alternative payment the gods immediately begin to grow old. So Wotan and Loge must go to Nibelheim and try to dupe Alberich out of his ring to regain Freia and her apples from the giants.
In Nibelheim Alberich is tyrannizing his brother Mime who has made the Tarnhelm for him. This helmet allows the wearer to become invisible, to change shape, or to transport instantly from one locale to another. Mime like almost everyone in “Das Rheingold” is a power-seeker but of the cowardly type. He wants to avail himself of the Tarnhelm but does not know the charm to make it work. Alberich utters the correct charm, becomes invisible and beats Mime with a scourge. Wotan and Loge arrive and hear Alberich’s plans for the use of the gold. Loge than cons Alberich into demonstrating how the Tarnhelm works (here Wagner makes use of the Puss-in-Boots tale where a cat gets an ogre to change himself into a lion and then a mouse whereupon the cat eats the mouse). Alberich turns himself into a dragon (foreshadowing what Fafner will soon do), impressing Wotan and Loge. When Loge asks him to make himself very small, Alberich becomes a little toad whereupon Wotan and Loge capture him.
Back above ground Alberich learns that he must give up the gold he forced his fellow Nibelungs to mine. He uses his ring to summon the Nibelungs and must suffer the embarrassment of watching them bring the gold to the surface. Then Loge adds the Tarnhelm to the pile. All this he can endure, for he can use his ring to obtain more gold and force Mime to make another helmet. But he becomes utterly bitter and incensed when Wotan tells him he must give up the ring and Wotan “violently tears [it] from his finger.” Alberich now places a curse on the ring:

“Since a curse (his renunciation of love)
gained it for me,
my curse lies on this ring!
Though its gold brought riches to me,
let now it bring but death,
death to its lord!”

The wielder of tyrannical power, ever liable to overthrow because others lust for this power, must always be on guard and can feel little joy. Alberich adds:

“Who owns the ring to the ring is a slave,
till the gold returns to this hand.”

Alberich is then free to leave and will spend the rest of the opera cycle trying to get his ring back.

© John Weinstock [e-mail]