Armida (Rossini)

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Work data
Title: Armida
Title page of the libretto, Naples 1817

Title page of the libretto, Naples 1817

Original language: Italian
Music: Gioachino Rossini
Libretto : Giovanni Schmidt
Literary source: Torquato Tasso : The Liberated Jerusalem
Premiere: November 11, 1817
Place of premiere: Teatro San Carlo , Naples
Playing time: about 3 hours
Place and time of the action: Crusader camp outside Jerusalem and Armida's Enchanted Realm, 1099
people
  • Armida, Princess of Damascus, sorceress ( soprano )
  • Goffredo ( Godfrey of Bouillon ), leader of the Crusaders (tenor)
  • Rinaldo, Italian knight ( tenor )
  • Idraote (Hydrast), King of Damascus, Wizard, Uncle Armidas ( Bass )
  • Gernando, Norman knight (tenor)
  • Eustazio ( Eustach III. ), Knight, brother Goffredos (tenor)
  • Ubaldo, knight (tenor)
  • Carlo, knight (tenor)
  • Astarotte, leader of Armida's ghosts (bass, from vocal range also deep tenor)
  • Knights, warriors, Frankish soldiers, Damascene followers of Armida, demons, spirits, nymphs ( choir )

Armida is an opera (original name: "Dramma per musica") by Gioachino Rossini . The libretto was written by Giovanni Schmidt to episodes from the 1574 completed epic Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso . The premiere took place on November 11, 1817 at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples.

action

The historical framework of the opera is the First Crusade . In 1099 the crusader army under their leader Goffredo ( Godfrey of Bouillon ) stands before the conquest of the city of Jerusalem. The enchanting Damascus princess Armida tries to weaken the army by luring away some of the most important knights under a pretext. The group is said to be led by Rinaldo, who used to have a love affair with Armida. She charms him again. The knight Gernando envy Rinaldo his rise and challenges him to a duel. Rinaldo kills him in battle. Since he is therefore condemned by Goffredo to the loss of a hand, he flees with Armida into their magic realm created by the demon Astarotte, where they indulge in love. Goffredo, who cannot do without Rinaldo, pardons him and sends the knights Ubaldo and Carlo to look for him. With the help of a magic wand, they manage to free Rinaldo from his obsession and bring him back to the crusaders' camp. Armida furiously swears revenge.

first act

The camp of the Christian army. In the distance the city of Jerusalem.

Scene 1. Trumpets announce the arrival of their leader Goffredo to the crusaders. They step out of their tents to honor him (introduction: “Lieto, ridente oltre l'usato”). Goffredo announces a ceasefire day to honor the fallen knight Dudone.

Scene 2. Eustazio reports to his brother Goffredo that a distinguished lady wants to speak to him (Eutazio / Goffredo / choir: “Germano, a te richiede”).

Scene 3. Armida and her uncle Idraote step forward in disguise. After everyone has admired her incomparable beauty, she reveals herself as the Princess of Damascus. She was raised by her uncle, who is now contesting her throne. So ask Goffredo for his help in regaining her legacy. Goffredo promises her his support. The conquest of Jerusalem has priority. As Armida succeeds in winning over the other crusaders through her desperate pleading (quartet with choir: "Sventurata! Or che mi resta"), Goffredo allows ten knights to accompany her. But first Dudone's successor has to be elected, who should also lead the group.

Scene 4. The knights elect the Italian knight Rinaldo to succeed Dodone. Armida is thrilled because she is in love with Rinaldo.

Scene 5. The Norman knight Gernando expresses his displeasure with the choice of Rinaldo. He had calculated his own chances (Aria Gernando: "Non soffrirò l'offesa"). While the other knights cheer Rinaldo, he swears to death.

Scene 6. Armidas and Idraote's secret plan has worked. Its real purpose was to lure away the most important knights in order to weaken the crusader army. Armida is not satisfied with that. She wants to charm hundreds in this way. Only with Rinaldo does she have other plans.

Scene 7. Rinaldo meets Armida. Although he does not believe that he can achieve much for her with his small band, he assures them of his respect and admiration. Armida reminds him that she had saved his life once - and of the love they had enjoyed in their castle until he was called back to the army. She manages to charm him again. Both swear their love to each other (duet: "Amor ... Possente nome!").

Scene 8. Gernando tries to expose Rinaldo in front of the other knights.

Scene 9. Rinaldo confronts Gernando. He continues with his abuse until both attack each other with their swords (beginning of Finale I: “Se pari agli accenti”).

Scene 10. The knights try in vain to force the two apart. Armida fears for Rinaldo's life. Rinaldo pushes Gernando into a tent.

Scene 11. Rinaldo kills Gernando. The knights are appalled by his deed. Armida blames herself for not responding in time.

Scene 12. Armida warns Rinaldo of the anger of Goffredo and advises them to flee. Rinaldo wants to preserve his honor and face it.

Scene 13. A dispute ensues between the supporters of Rinaldo and Gernando. Goffredo pronounces the verdict: Rinaldo should lose a hand. Now Armida can persuade him to flee. Both hurry away.

Second act

Horrible forest. The sea can be seen in the background through some openings

Scene 1. Astarotte and the demons rise from the earth to transform the deserted area into a paradise (choir of demons with Astarotte: “Alla voce d'Armida possente”). Astarotte summons the spirits to support Armida in her fight against the crusaders and to destroy Rinaldo. The demons swear to use their lives in battle (chorus: “Di ferro e fiamme cinti”). A cloud floats down and the demons sink into the earth.

Magnificent palace

Scene 2. Once on the ground, the cloud splits up. A carriage drawn by two dragons becomes visible, in which Rinaldo and Armida are. Armida transforms the carriage into a flower throne. The dragons are disappearing. Rinaldo's surprise is barely able to control his senses (duet: “Dove son io?”). He is now in Armida's realm, where they can surrender to love (Finale II: “No, d'amor la reggia è questa”). At a wink from Armida, the scene is transformed into the interior of a magnificent palace that is populated with ghosts, nymphs and other magical beings. These entwine Rinaldo with flower chains and sing about love and dance.

Third act

Enchanted garden

The scene depicts simple nature in every imaginable way: rich fruit trees, hedges and bushes with all kinds of flowers, flowing and standing water with various birds; other colorful birds flutter from tree to tree; moss-covered caves on one side; the area is bordered by lovely hills and shady valleys.

Scene 1. Since the crusaders cannot do without Rinaldo, Goffredo has forgiven him. He sent the knights Ubaldo and Carlo to look for him and to free him from the clutches of Armida. They received a golden scepter and a document to support them. After various adventures with wild animals, they successfully penetrated their magic garden (duet: “Come l'aurette placide”). During their conversation, a gentle melody is played that gradually intensifies and heralds the appearance of the ghosts.

Scene 2. Demons in the form of nymphs sing about the peaceful nature while dancing (choir of nymphs: “Qui tutto è calma”). They disappear when Ubaldo shakes the scepter.

Scene 3. The surprisingly quick effect of the scepter gives Ubaldo and Carlo hope that their project will be a success. When they see Armida and Rinaldo coming in the distance, they hide behind a bush.

Scene 4. Holding hands, Armida and Rinaldo sing about their love (duet: “Soavi catene”). Armida is distracted by a spell and moves away.

Scene 5. Rinaldo is now completely obsessed with Armida. He can hardly stand her absence.

Scene 6. Ubaldo and Carlo come out from behind the bush and tell Rinaldo that Goffredo wants him to return to the army. Since Rinaldo is unable to part with Armida, Ubaldo holds a diamond shield in front of his eyes as a mirror (trio: “In quale aspetto imbelle”). Rinaldo is shocked to see his condition and joins the two to return to the crusader camp.

Scene 7. Armida returns and is dismayed by Rinaldo's escape. She goes looking for him.

Outside of Armida's palace

Scene 8. Ubaldo, Carlo and Rinaldo have almost reached the seashore where a ship is waiting for them. In the distance they hear Armida calling for Rinaldo.

Scene 9. Armida reaches the fugitives. She knows that her love charm is no longer effective and begs Rinaldo to at least take her with him as his prisoner. Rinaldo rejects them. He wants to part with her in kindness (beginning of Finale III: “Se al mio crudel tormento”). Armida faints in her desperation. Rinaldo tries to approach her, but is pushed away by Ubaldo and Carlo.

Scene 10. When Armida comes to, Rinaldo is gone. A demon in the form of the goddess of vengeance rises from the abyss. Armida calls for vengeance and wants to approach the goddess. Weeping and lamenting love personified appears in the air. Armida is torn. Eventually she chooses revenge.

Scene 11. Armida's demons rise from the abyss in their dragon chariot. With their vengeance, the car rises into the air between fire and smoke

layout

The opera contains only one highly virtuoso female role, but instead six or seven (if you count Astarotte as a tenor) tenor roles. Of these, however, some are only supporting roles, which can be divided between three singers, as in the world premiere.

Instrumentation

Analogous to the lavish stage equipment, the orchestral line-up of the opera is particularly voluminous. It contains the following instruments:

Music numbers

The opera contains the following musical numbers:

  • Sinfonia

first act

  • No. 1. Introduction (Choir of the Knights, Goffredo): "Lieto, ridente oltre l'usato" (scene 1)
  • No. 2. Choir of the Knights (Eutazio, Goffredo, Choir): "Germano, a te richiede" (scene 2)
  • No. 3 quartet (Armida, Goffredo, Idraote, Eustazio, choir): “Sventurata! Or che mi resta "(scene 3)
  • No. 4. Aria (Gernando): "Non soffrirò l'offesa" (scene 5)
  • No. 5. Duet (Rinaldo, Armida): "Amor ... Possente nome!" (Scene 7)
  • No. 6. Finale I: "Se pari agli accenti" (scene 9)

Second act

  • No. 7. Choir of demons (chorus, astarotte): "Alla voce d'Armida possente" (scene 1)
  • No. 8. Choir: "Di ferro e fiamme cinti" (scene 1)
  • No. 9. Duet (Rinaldo, Armida): "Dove son io?" (Scene 2)
  • No. 10. Finale II: "No, d'amor la reggia è questa" (scene 2)
  • ballet

Third act

  • No. 11. Duet (Ubaldo, Carlo): "Come l'aurette placide" (scene 1)
  • No. 12. Choir of the Nymphs: "Qui tutto è calma" (scene 2)
  • No. 13. Duet (Armida, Rinaldo): "Soavi catene" (scene 4)
  • No. 14. Trio (Rinaldo, Carlo, Ubaldo): "In quale aspetto imbelle" (scene 6)
  • No. 15. Finale III: "Se al mio crudel tormento" (scene 9)

music

Armida is the only Italian opera by Rossini that contains a ballet (in the second act) and magical effects. Formally, male ensembles and the three duets for Armida and Rinaldo predominate. The only aria is not dedicated to Armida or the main male role Rinaldo, but to Gernando. All of this highlights the special importance of the title character and the only female role Armida.

Music numbers worth mentioning are:

  • The dramatic quartet Armida / Goffredo / Idraote / Eustazio “Sventurata! Or che mi resta “(No. 3, first act, scene 3) is the setting for Armida's first big appearance. The middle section seems to imitate the canzonetta “Caro mio ben” attributed to Giuseppe Giordani .
  • The duet “Amor… Possente nome!” (No. 5, first act, scene 7) is the first and more famous of the three love duets. "It is a classic Rossini duet that characterizes people and situations through sensually perceptible sensations and formal structures."
  • The gruesome forest at the beginning of the second act is depicted with diminished chords and hard brass passages.
  • The second duet “Dove son io?” (No. 9, second act, scene 2) is the most atmospheric of the duets in this opera. It is accompanied by a solo cello and has a "great erotic charisma".
  • Armida's theme with variations "D'amore al dolce impero" (second act, scene 2) is "a virtuoso showpiece, the most brilliant music that Rossini wrote for Armida".
  • The third duet “Soavi catene” (No. 13, third act, scene 4) is a “luxuriant idyll” with a solo violin.
  • The trio Rinaldo / Carlo / Ubaldo: “In quale aspetto imbelle” (No. 14, third act, scene 6) for three tenors is “a brilliant implementation of the situation, a ravishing tonal concept”.
  • At the beginning of Finale III “Se al mio crudel tormento” (third act, scene 9), the harmonies remain on a single repeated F sharp for eighteen bars during the separation of the lovers.

Work history

A few weeks after the Milan premiere of La gazza ladra , Rossini returned to Naples. There he began work on his next opera in early August 1817, which was to be played for the reopening of the Teatro San Carlo , which was rebuilt after the fire in February 1816 . In order to achieve the greatest possible effect on the stage, the impresario Barbaja decided on the story of the seduction of the knight Rinaldo by the sorceress Armida from Torquato Tasso's epic The Liberated Jerusalem, completed in 1574 . Giovanni Schmidt's libretto is based freely on episodes from this work. Schmidt reinvented only a few plot elements - including Armida's earlier encounter with Rinaldo, during which she fell in love with him. The focus of the libretto is on the love affair between the two. It is implemented appropriately for the drama and also contains quotes from the original. Despite his aversion to such fantastic subjects, Rossini set the text to music in accordance with the contract.

At the premiere on November 11, 1817, the soprano Isabella Colbran sang in the title role, the tenors Giuseppe Ciccimarra (Goffredo and Carlo), Andrea Nozzari (Rinaldo), Claudio Bonoldi (Gernando and Ubaldo) and Gaetano Chizzola (Eustazio and Astarotte) as well as the Bass Michele Benedetti (Idraote). Although the king present in the audience applauded, the criticism only gave the work a mild reception. The Giornale del Regno delle Due Sicilie praised the performers on December 3, and the spectacular production as well as individual pieces, noticed but at the same stylistic shortcomings compared to the "legendary figures" the former Italian music. Rossini gave up the pure Italian style in favor of "German seductions".

Title page of the libretto, Stuttgart 1822

Rossini's instrumentation was partly inspired by the French opera of the early 19th century, such as Spontini's La vestale (1807), which was played at the San Carlo until 1815. “This becomes particularly clear in the final aria, when Rossini visualizes Armida's struggle between feelings of love and feelings of revenge through a contrasting motif and sound.” In Armida, Rossini gave the choirs and ensemble scenes a relatively large amount of space, reduced the recitatives and integrated longer ballet interludes. The Rossini biographer Richard Osborne listens to “passionate, unconditionally erotic music”, which he attributes not least to Rossini's relationship with Isabella Colbran.

Due to its limited success, Rossini later used material from Armida in other works such as Il viaggio a Reims (1825), Moïse et Pharaon (1827) or the Cantata in onore del Sommo Pontefice Pio Nono (1847) as well as in revised versions by Otello (Rome 1820) ) and La Cenerentola (Rome 1821).

The work had a difficult time from the beginning, not least because it poses major casting problems for the theater: Rossini's Armida is extremely demanding as a singer, not only in the title role, which is tailored to Colbran's possibilities, but also because the score stipulates six tenors, of which at least three demanding leading roles (although the score makes double occupations possible). In 1818 an abridged version was played in Venice. In 1819 (in a two-act version) and 1823 there were further performances in Naples. In 1821 the work was published in a German version in Vienna, further performances took place in 1827 and 1836 in Hamburg and in 1832 in Berlin, then the work disappeared from the repertoire.

It was not until 1952 that the opera was rediscovered at the Maggio Musicale in Florence in a now legendary performance with Maria Callas in the title role. But here, too, the other roles could not be adequately cast, so that the performance remained an "admired individual event". The opera has only been heard more frequently since the 1980s, for example in 1985 with Katia Ricciarelli in the title role in Venice, in 1988 with June Anderson in Aix-en-Provence, and in 1992 with Cecilia Gasdia and the tenors Chris Merritt , William Matteuzzi and Bruce Ford . In 1993 Renée Fleming sang Armida at the Rossini Opera Festival Pesaro , and in 2010 she was Armida at the Metropolitan Opera with Lawrence Brownlee as Rinaldo. The cast is still the major problem of this opera: "A performance of Armida is still what it was during Rossini's lifetime: a special risk."

Recordings

Web links

Commons : Armida  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Marcus Chr. Lippe: Rossini's opera series - On the musical-dramatic conception. Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-515-08586-6 .
  2. ↑ a b c Richard Osborne:  Armida (vi). In: Grove Music Online (English; subscription required).
  3. ^ Wilhelm Keitel , Dominik Neuner : Gioachino Rossini. Albrecht Knaus, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-8135-0364-X .
  4. ↑ a b Armida. Notes on the Critical Edition by Charles S. Brauner and Patricia B. Brauner , accessed February 23, 2016.
  5. ↑ Armida (1817). Music numbers on librettidopera.it , accessed February 23, 2016.
  6. ^ A b Charles Osborne : The Bel Canto Operas of Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini. Amadeus Press, Portland, Oregon, 1994, ISBN 978-0-931340-71-0 .
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Richard Osborne: Rossini - life and work. Translated from the English by Grete Wehmeyer. List Verlag, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-471-78305-9 .
  8. ↑ a b c Preface to the piano reduction of the critical edition by Charles S. Brauner and Patricia B. Brauner, pp. XXVIII – XXXI (PDF)
  9. ^ A b Herbert Weinstock : Rossini - A biography. Translated by Kurt Michaelis. Kunzelmann, Adliswil 1981 (1968), ISBN 3-85662-009-0 .
  10. ^ Record of the performance on November 11, 1817 in the Teatro San Carlo in the Corago information system of the University of Bologna .
  11. ↑ a b c Sabine Heinz-Döhring: Armida. In: Piper's Encyclopedia of Musical Theater. Munich, Zurich 1986, volume 5.
  12. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Gioacchino Rossini. In: Andreas Ommer: Directory of all opera complete recordings. Zeno.org , volume 20.
  13. ^ Admission by Carlo Franci (1973) in the discography of Armida at Operadis.
  14. ^ Including Gabriele Ferro (1985) in the Armida discography at Operadis.
  15. ^ Admission by Claudio Scimone (1988) in the discography of Armida at Operadis.
  16. ↑ Rodney Milnes: Armida, Rossini (DVD). Review on opera.co.uk (English) retrieved on February 27 2016th