thumb|upright=1.2|Lully's Armide at the [[Palais-Royal Opera House in 1761, watercolor by Gabriel de Saint-Aubin]]

Armide is an opera in five acts by Jean-Baptiste Lully. The libretto by Philippe Quinault is based on Torquato Tasso's poem La Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem Delivered). The work is in the form of a tragédie en musique, a genre invented by Lully and Quinault.

Critics in the 18th century regarded Armide as Lully's masterpiece. It continues to be well-regarded, featuring some of the best-known music in French baroque opera and being arguably ahead of its time in its psychological interest. Unlike most of his operas, Armide concentrates on the sustained psychological development of a character – not Renaud, who spends most of the opera under Armide's spell, but Armide, who repeatedly tries without success to choose vengeance over love.

Performance history

Armide was first performed on 15 February 1686 by the Paris Opera at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal, with scenery by Bérain, in the presence of the Grand Dauphin. The subject for the opera was chosen for Lully by King Louis XIV.

However, the king would not attend the première or any of the following performances, possibly because Lully was involved in a homosexual scandal. The opera was well received by the Parisians and was revived by the Paris Opera in 1703, 1713–14, 1724, 1746–47, 1761, and 1764. Between 1686 and 1751 Armide was mounted in Marseille, Brussels, Lyon, Lunéville and perhaps Metz, and was also produced abroad in The Hague, Berlin (with revisions by Carl Heinrich Graun) and apparently, in two concert performances, in Rome.

On 5 November 2005, almost 320 years later, Opera Atelier of Toronto gave Armide its North American premiere under conductor Andrew Parrott and music director David Fallis.

Roles

thumbnail|Title page of the score's first edition, Paris 1686

{| class="wikitable"

!Role

!Voice type

!Premiere cast,

|-

|Aronte, guard of Armide's captive knights

|basse-taille

|

|-

|Artémidor, a knight

|taille (baritenor)

|

|-

|La Haine [Hatred]

|taille

|M. Frère

|-

|Ubalde, a knight

|basse-taille

|

|-

|The Danish Knight, companion of Ubalde

|haute-contre

|

|-

|A Demon in the form of a Water Nymph

|soprano

|

|-

|A Demon in the form of Lucinde, the Danish Knight's beloved

|soprano

|

|-

|A Demon in the form of Melisse, Ubalde's beloved

|soprano

|

|-

|A fortunate lover

|haute-contre

|

|-

|colspan="3"|Heroes who follow Glory; nymphs who follow Wisdom; people of Damascus; demons disguised as nymphs, shepherds and shepherdesses; flying demons disguised as Zephyrs;<br/>followers of Hatred, the Furies, Cruelty, Vengeance, Rage, etc.; demons disguised as rustics; Pleasures; demons disguised as happy lovers

|-

|}

thumb|Rinaldo and Armida by [[Nicolas Poussin, 1629]]

Synopsis

thumb|One of [[Jean Bérain the Elder|Jean Bérain's designs for the first staging of Armide, 1686]]

During the First Crusade, Armide ensnares her enemy the Christian knight Renaud with her magic spells. At the moment she raises her dagger to kill him, she finds herself falling in love with him. She casts a spell to make him love her in return. Upon returning to her castle, she cannot bear that Renaud's love is only the work of enchantment. She calls on the Goddess of Hate to restore her hatred for Renaud, but fails to escape from her feelings of love for him. The Goddess condemns Armide to eternal love. Before Armide can return to Renaud, two of his fellow soldiers reach Renaud and break Armide's spell. Renaud manages to escape from Armide, who is left enraged, despairing, and hopeless.

thumb|Scene from act II, engraving from a score, 1700

History and analysis

Roughly eight decades following Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, Jean-Baptiste Lully produced Armide with his longtime collaborator, playwright Jean-Philippe Quinault. Together they had developed the tragédie en musique, or tragédie lyrique, which served as a new form of opera that combined elements of classical French drama with ballet, the French song tradition, and a new form of recitative. Armide was one of Lully's last operas and is therefore extremely developed in style.

The opera's instrumental overture is divided into two parts, all with the same highly professional sound, as if to accompany the entrance of a highly revered authority. It is in fact, according to the Norton Anthology of Western Music, a "majesty suitable to the king of France, whose entrance into the theater the overture usually accompanied when he was in attendance". At points it is playful and bouncy, while always remaining ceremonious. The first section of the overture is in duple meter and comparatively sounds slower than the second section, when the meter changes into compound. These two different styles switch off until the conclusion of the piece (in duple meter).

thumb|Engraving of the composer, from the score's [[Book frontispiece|frontispiece]]

The most famous moment in the opera is Act II, scene 5, a monologue by the enchantress Armide, considered "one of the most impressive recitatives in all of Lully's operas".

Recordings

{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:95%;"

!Year

!Width="155"|Cast<br />(Armide, Renaud)

!Conductor,<br />Opera house and orchestra

!Label

|-

|1983

|Rachel Yakar,<br />Zeger Vandersteene

| Philippe Herreweghe,<br />La Chapelle Royale

|CD: Erato<br />Cat: STU 715302

|-

|1993

|Guillemette Laurens,<br />Howard Crook

|Philippe Herreweghe,<br />Collegium Vocale, La Chapelle Royale

|CD: Erato<br />Cat: HMC 901456.57

|-

|2007

|Stephanie Houtzeel,<br />Robert Getchell

|Ryan Brown,<br />Opera Lafayette

|CD: Naxos<br />Cat: 8.660209-10MMO 91117

|-

|2008

|Stéphanie d'Oustrac,<br />Paul Agnew

|William Christie,<br />Les Arts Florissants

|DVD: Fra Musica <br />Cat: B01EGQRWV8

|-

|2015

|Marie-Adeline Henry,<br />Antonio Figueroa

|Christophe Rousset,<br />Chœur de Chambre de Namur, Les Talens Lyriques

|CD: Aparté<br />Cat: AP135

|-

|2023

|Stéphanie d'Oustrac,<br />Cyril Auvity

|Vincent Dumestre,<br />Chœur de l'Opéra de Dijon, Le Poème Harmonique

|CD: Château des Versailles Spectacles<br />Cat: CVS124

|}

See also

  • Rinaldo, 1711 opera by Handel to a related libretto
  • Armide, 1777 opera by Gluck to Quinault's libretto, with some changes added

References

;Notes

;Sources

  • Lajarte, Théodore (1878). Bibliothèque musicale du Théâtre de l'Opéra, volume 1 [1671–1791]. Paris: Librairie des Bibliophiles (online at Google Books).
  • Rosow, Lois, "Armide (i)", in Stanley Sadie (ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, (Oxford University Press, New York, 1997), , I, p.&nbsp;200-02
  • Le magazin de l'opéra baroque
  • Libretto