Aaron Rabushka wrote:

>When I think of evil men in opera it's hard not to start with the Ring
>Cycle: Alberich

Actually, except for his abuse of the Nibelungen while he possessed the
Ring, Alberich may be the most honorable of the major male characters in
the Ring cycle.  He came by the ring fair and square, after renouncing love
in response to the Rhine Maiden's taunts.  When it is taken from him by
treachery he places a curse upon all of its subsequent possessors, none of
whom have a right to it.  As for the other characters:  Wotan tries to get
out of an improvident bargain with the giants, condones adultery and incest
in Siegmund and then turns upon him anyway; Siegmund runs off with and
impregnates another man's (admittedly unhappy) wife after learning that
she's his sister; Mime lives hoping to kill his ward, Siegfried, as soon
as the latter should secure the ring; Siegfried, unaware of this, is
distressingly unappreciative and ungrateful to Mime for having raised him
from infancy when his mother died in childbirth and kills a dragon for no
reason other than that it hadn't taught him to fear; Hagen is an evil
schemer and literally a back stabber; Gunter, a wimp.

Now, among the females, Erda, worldly wise, Brunhilde, more sinned against
than sinning, and Gutrune, who doesn't seem to have a clue, could be
considered honorable.  The Rhine Maidens are a bunch of bitches, but for
whose taunting of Alberich we might have been spared the rest of the cycle
(maybe that's what redeems them!); Sieglinde should probably have exercised
more self-restraint; Fricka is a self-righteous biddy....

Walter Meyer