• Anton Schweitzer. Singspiel in five acts. 1773.
• Libretto by Christoph Martin Wieland, based on Euripides’ Alcestis.
• First performance at the Hoftheater, Weimar, on 28th May 1773.

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CHARACTERS

Alceste (Alcestis)	soprano
Parthenia	soprano
Admet (Admetus)	tenor
Herkules (Hercules)	bass

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Alcestis, in spite of the protestations of her confidante Parthenia, insists on taking the place of her husband in death. Hercules, moved by her sacrifice, goes to the Underworld and brings her back to her husband.

Wieland’s simplification of the plot was in part necessitated by the relatively limited musical resources of the Weimar Court Theatre. The young Goethe took exception to the piece, attacking it in his satirical farce Götter, Helden und Wieland (Gods, Heroes and Wieland), in which Wieland is brought face to face with the reality of the situation of Admetus and Alcestis and with the immense size of Hercules, who, in Wieland’s work, had been merely a ‘wohlgestalter Mann, mittlere Grösser’ (well-proportioned man of middling size). Wieland, a figure of importance in Weimar, reacted generously and the satire proved no obstacle to Goethe’s move to Weimar in 1775.