By the opera's cuknination, both characters were stripped down to pristine white underwear while a shower of red feathers (symbolizing '
rubedo'--reddening--where the 'self' archetype achieves wholeness) cascaded down upon their virginal whiteness, creating a real visual tour-de-force.
'"Nigredo, Albedo,
Rubedo' y otras alegorias alquimicas en La fuerza de la sangre, una novela ejemplar de Miguel de Cervantes." Brujeria, magia y otros prodigios en la literatura espanola del Siglo de Oro.
The development of the prima materia up to the
rubedo ...depicts the conscious realization (illuminatio) of an unconscious state of conflict.
[According to Jung, the caduceus or snake-entwined staff reveals that the "heart of Mercurius" is the Pole, which is] present in all three stages of the alchemical work: boiling black (nigredo), congealed white (albedo), and distilled red (
rubedo); matter as chaos, material organized by spirit, matter turned divine elixir; lead, crystal, gold; body, psyche, and spirit.
has unveiled
Rubedo metal, an exclusive new jeweler's metal made from gold, silver and copper.
The
rubedo, or red, is synonymous with the final conjunction of chemical opposites, depicted in hermetic emblems either in the shape of the hermaphrodite or through the union of Man and Woman, the Sun and Moon, or the King and Queen, who are often represented as copulating.
Great Work (4)--to whose three stages (Nigredo, Albedo, and
Rubedo) the
'blackening' (melanosis, nigredo) of the materia or 'stone' is followed by bleaching (leukosis, albedo), and this, in turn, is followed by 'reddening' (iosis,
rubedo).