Armide (Gluck)

Gluck operas

"Armide" is an opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck, his fourth for the Parisian stage and the composer's own favourite among his works. It was first performed in Paris at the Académie Royale on September 23, 1777.

Gluck set the same libretto Philippe Quinault had written for Lully in 1686, based on Torquato Tasso's "Gerusalemme liberata" ("Jerusalem Delivered"). Gluck seemed at ease in facing French traditions head-on when he composed "Armide". Lully and Quinault were the very founders of serious opera in France and "Armide" was generally recognized as their masterpiece, so it was a bold move on Gluck's part to write new music to Quinault's words. A similar attempt to write a new opera to the libretto of Thésée by Jean Joseph de Mondonville in 1765 had ended in disaster, with audiences demanding it be replaced by Lully's original. By utilizing "Armide", Gluck challenged the long-standing and apparently inviolable ideals of French practice, and in the process he revealed these values capable of renewal through "modern" compositional sensitivities. Critical response and resultant polemic resulted in one of those grand imbroglios common to French intellectual life. Gluck struck a nerve in French sensitivities, and whereas "Armide" was not one of his more popular works, it remained a critical touchstone in the French operatic tradition and was warmly praised by Berlioz in his "Memoirs". Gluck also set a minor fashion for resetting Lully/Quinault operas: Gluck's rival Piccinni followed his example with "Roland" in 1778 and "Atys" in 1780; in the same year, Philidor produced a new "Persée"; and Gossec offered his version of "Thésée" in 1782. Gluck himself is said to have been working on an opera based on "Roland", but he abandoned it when he heard Piccinni had taken on the same libretto.

Roles

ynopsis

For the storyline, see "Armide" by Lully. Gluck kept the libretto unchanged, although he cut the allegorical prologue and added a few lines of his own devising to the end of Act Three. Similarly, the roles and the disposition of the voices are the same as in Lully's opera.

elected recordings

*"Armide": Armide (Mireille Delunsch), Renaud (Charles Workman), La Haine (Ewa Podles), Hidraot (Laurent Naouri); Les Musiciens du Louvre, Marc Minkowski (Deutsche Grammophon Archiv, 1999)

External links

* (French)
* [http://www.karadar.com/Librettos/gluck_Armida.html Libretto] (Italian)

References