Editing Alberich (section)

==Wagner==
In [[Richard Wagner|Wagner]]'s opera cycle ''[[Der Ring des Nibelungen]]'', Alberich is the chief of the [[Nibelung]]en race of dwarves and the main antagonist driving events. In ''[[Das Rheingold]]'', the first opera in the cycle, he gains the power to forge the ring after renouncing love and stealing the gold of the river Rhein, of which the ring is made. His brother, the smith Mime, creates the [[Tarnhelm]] for Alberich. News of the gold robbery and ring of power incites gods and giants alike to action.  The giants [[Fafnir|Fafner]] and [[Fasolt]] demand the ring in payment for building [[Valhalla]], and carry off [[Freyja|Freia]] as a hostage.  In ''[[Götterdämmerung]]'' (the fourth opera in Wagner's cycle), [[Hagen (legend)|Hagen]], the murderer of the hero [[Siegfried (opera)|Siegfried]], is the half-human half-dwarf son of Alberich by Grimhilde, a human woman. This detail of Hagen's origin is Wagner's invention, not taken from the myth or epic poems, in which Hagen is an ordinary human being with human parents.

Wagner's Alberich is a [[composite character]], mostly based on Alberich from the ''Nibelungenlied'', but also on [[Andvari]] from [[Norse mythology]]. He has been widely described, most notably by [[Theodor Adorno]], as a [[anti-Semitism|negative]] [[Jew]]ish stereotype, with his race expressed through "distorted" music and "muttering" speech;<ref>{{cite book |last=Schausten| first=Monika |editor-first=Barbara| editor-last=Kosta |title=Writing against boundaries: nationality, ethnicity and gender in the German-speaking context |publisher=Rodopi |year=2003 |pages=9–27 |chapter="Only Germany raises real men for the world": Richard Wagner's ''Ring des Nibelungen'', Nation, and the Third Reich}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=Wagner: Race and Revolution |last=Rose |first=Paul |author-link=Paul Lawrence Rose |publisher=Yale University Press |year=1996 |pages=69–70}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=Richard Wagner and the Anti-Semitic Imagination |last=Weiner |first=Mark |pages=135–143 |publisher=University of Nebraska Press |year=1997}}</ref> other critics, however, disagree with this assessment.<ref>See e.g. {{Cite book|title=I Saw the World End: A study of Wagner's ''Ring'' |author-link=Deryck Cooke |last=Cooke |first=Deryck | publisher=Oxford University Press| page=264}}</ref>

Alberich shows up in ''Rheingold,'' not in ''Walküre,'' then again in ''Siegfried,'' and finally in ''Götterdämmerung'' (while Hagen is sleeping, commanding Hagen to regain the Ring).  At the end of the opera, Alberich along with the three Rhine maidens are the only key characters in ''Der Ring des Nibelungen'' that remain alive.  Wotan seems to die at the end of ''Götterdämmerung'' when Valhalla goes up in flames, Fasolt from ''Rheingold'' dies in ''Rheingold,'' Sieglinde and Siegmund from ''Walküre'' die in ''Walküre'' (Sieglinde is at least dead by the time ''Siegfried'' begins, some 15–20 years later), Mime (from ''Rheingold'' and ''Siegfried'') dies in ''Siegfried'', Gunther and Hagen from ''Götterdämmerung'' both die at the end of it, and Siegfried (from ''Siegfried'' and ''Götterdämmerung'') and Brunhilde (from ''Walküre'', ''Siegfried'', and ''Götterdämmerung'') both die in ''Götterdämmerung''.{{citation needed|date=August 2020}}