Armide (Gluck)
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| Title: | Armida |
| Original title: | Armide |
Title page of the libretto, Paris 1777 |
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| Shape: | Drame héroïque in five acts |
| Original language: | French |
| Music: | Christoph Willibald Gluck |
| Libretto : | Philippe Quinault |
| Literary source: | Torquato Tasso : The Liberated Jerusalem |
| Premiere: | September 23, 1777 |
| Place of premiere: | Paris, Académie Royale de musique |
| Playing time: | about 3 hours |
| Place and time of the action: | In and around Damascus at the time of the First Crusade in the late 11th century |
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Armide is an opera (original name: "Drame héroïque") in five acts by Christoph Willibald Gluck . Philippe Quinault's libretto is based on the Armida episode from Torquato Tasso's epic The Liberated Jerusalem and was set to music by Jean-Baptiste Lully as early as 1686 . The premiere took place on September 23, 1777 at the Académie Royale de musique in Paris .
action
first act
Square in Damascus with a triumphal arch
Scene 1. Armide, the magical princess of Damascus, was spurned by her lover Renaud and complains of her misery to her companions Phénice and Sidonie. The two remind you of the recent victory over the crusader army Godefrois ( Gottfried von Bouillon ). But nothing can lift Armides' mood: In a dream she saw Renaud pierce her heart.
Scene 2. Old Hidraot, Armides' uncle and King of Damascus, appears with his entourage. He wants nothing more than that Armide find a worthy husband who can rule over the kingdom after him. Armide declares that she will only marry the one who had previously defeated Renaud in battle (Armide: "La chaîne de l'Hymen m'étonne").
Scene 3. The people of Damascus celebrate Armide's victory with dance and song. Phénice and Sidonie agree: Armide had defeated the opponents without weapons of war, just by her beauty.
Scene 4. The general Aronte stumbles in wounded with a broken sword and reports that the prisoners he is guarding have been freed by a single invincible hero. As Armide immediately suspects, it is Renaud. All swear vengeance.
Second act
Landscape in which a river forms a graceful island
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Scene 1. The knight Artémidore thanks his liberator Renaud, who sends him back to the crusader camp. Renaud himself cannot return there, as he - falsely accused of an offense by Gernaud - had been banished by Godefroi. Renaud now wants to look for new adventures alone. He dismissed Artémidore's warning of Armide with the words that she could not bewitch him even when they last met (Renaud: “J'aime la liberté”). Both go.
Scene 2. Hidraot brings Armide over. He has summoned demons to appear in this remote place. Since no monster has yet to be seen, they both cast a spell again together to summon their spirits and charm Renaud (duet: “Esprits de haine et de rage”). In a vision Armide sees Renaud approach the river bank. She withdraws with Hidraot.
Scene 3. Arrived on the bank, the bewitched Renaud praises the beauty of nature (Renaud: “Plus j'observe ces lieux”). He becomes tired and falls asleep.
Scene 4. A naiad, nymphs, shepherds and shepherdesses appear - it is in reality the demons summoned by Armide in transformed form. They dance, sing about peaceful life and love, and surround Renaud with garlands of flowers.
Scene 5. Armide sees her chance for revenge and approaches the sleeping Renaud with a dagger. But suddenly she is overwhelmed by love for him again. Your anger dissipates. Out of shame about her inability, she asks her demons to transform themselves into Zephyre and to carry them both far away into the desert (Armide: "Venez, venez, seconder mes désirs").
Third act
A desert
Scene 1. Armide is plagued by self-doubt (Armide: "Ah! Si la liberté me doit être ravie").
Scene 2. Phénice, Sidonie try to comfort their mistress. After all, Renaud is now in her power and has to succumb to her love spell. But Armide cannot be satisfied with forced love. She decides to replace her love with hate (Armide: “De mes plus doux regards Renaud sut se défendre”).
Scene 3. Alone again, Armide calls La Haine, the fury of hatred, to drive away her love (Armide: “Venez, venez, Haine implacable!”).
Scene 4. La Haine appears with her entourage. She likes to fulfill Armide's wish to destroy the love in her heart. But when the incantation (a fury dance) is in full swing, Armide calls a halt because she has changed her mind. La Haine feels mocked by her and swears never to come to her aid again. Cupid will lead them to ruin (La Haine and choir: "Suis l'Amour, puisque tu le veux").
Scene 5. After the furies are gone, the terrified Armide calls on Amor for help.
Fourth act
The same wasteland whose abysses open; then transformation into a lovely landscape
Scene 1. Ubalde and the Danish knight were sent by Godefroi to rescue Renaud from Armide's clutches. In order to escape her magical powers, Ubalde received a diamond shield and a golden scepter from a magician. The Danish knight is carrying a sword that he is supposed to hand over to Renaud. Fog rises and spreads in the desert of the third act. Various monsters oppose the two, but Ubalde can drive them away with his scepter. The fog also disappears. The desert turns into a lovely landscape. They are confident that they will find Renaud and win her back for the crusade.
Scene 2. A demon appears in the form of Lucinde, the Danish knight's lover, and tries to bewitch him. The Danish knight cannot tear himself away from her and ignores all of Ubaldes warnings. But when he touches her with the golden scepter, she disappears on the spot.
Scene 3. Ubalde assures the Danish knight that the apparition was only an illusion. He believes himself safe from such aberrations, since he has left his lover to devote himself entirely to glory.
Scene 4. A demon in the form of Ubaldes' former lover Melissa appears. This time Ubalde ignores the Danish knight's warnings. This snatches the scepter from him, touches lemon balm and drives it away. The two knights decide to be more careful in the future and to hurry to reach the Armides palace (duet: "Fuyons les douceurs dangereuses").
Fifth act
The enchanted palace of Armides
Scene 1. Renaud is completely addicted to Armide. Unarmed, adorned with garlands of flowers, he is in her palace. But Armide is plagued by foreboding. She sets off for the underworld to seek advice. During their absence, the geniuses of joy are supposed to entertain their loved ones.
Scene 2. The geniuses of joy and choirs of blessed lovers appear in a divertissement. Various dances, arias and choirs are framed by two Chaconnes . But Renaud prefers solitude as long as his lover is not with him (Renaud: "Allez, éloignez-vous de moi"). The geniuses and choirs withdraw.
Scene 3. Ubalde and the Danish knight have reached their destination and find Renaud alone. After Ubalde has held the diamond shield in front of his eyes, his enchantment evaporates. They tell him that their general is calling him back to fight. Renaud tears off the flower garlands and receives the diamond shield from Ubalde and the sword from the Danish knight. He is ready to go.
Scene 4. Before the three of them can leave the palace, Armide returns. She begs Renaud to stay, or at least to take her as a prisoner (Armide: "Renaud! Ciel! O mortelle peine!"). But Renaud is determined to resume his duty. He only assures her that he will remember her forever. Armide is now resorting to threats, but these do nothing either. After a final expression of regret (Renaud: "Trop malheureuse Armide, Que ton destin est déplorable"), Renaud and his companions leave the magic palace.
Scene 5. Armide is left alone. After complaining about the loss of Renaud, she recalls the La Haines prophecy. Now all that's left is vengeance. Desperate, she orders her furies and demons to tear down the magic palace. Then she takes off in a flying car.
layout
Instrumentation
The orchestral line-up for the opera includes the following instruments:
- Woodwind : two flutes , two oboes , two clarinets , two bassoons
- Brass : two horns , two trumpets
- Timpani
- Strings
music
Gluck interpreted the course of the plot differently than Lully. While the earlier setting of the text placed the emphasis on the overcoming of Armides' magic arts by the Crusaders, Gluck looked above all at the soul of the heroine. Since the text of both versions is identical, he achieved this exclusively through musical means. Armide is the only one of his late operas with a tragic ending. Other special features are the abundance of theatrical effects and dance scenes as well as the varied plot. Croll's Gluck biography describes the opera as a “high-contrast, extremely colorful sound painting” that “expresses the characteristic features of all the people involved, their moods and their respective surroundings, without ever neglecting the core and consistent course of the drama ". Gluck himself wrote in a letter from the summer of 1776 that he had tried to be “more a painter and poet than a musician”.
There are only a few self-contained larger musical numbers in Armide . The opera consists mainly of shorter arias, ariosi and recitatives. The character of Armides is essentially represented in the latter two forms. At the center of the work is a large contiguous section in which Armide meets La Haine and the demons. This consists of various solos, choir scenes and a pantomime evocation. In order not to leave Armide completely destroyed after the curse of La Haines, Gluck had four additional verses inserted. Robert Maschka wrote in the opera's handbook about the music of these lines, which shows the essential difference between Gluck and Lully's interpretation of the libretto: “While in the middle string parts a pulsating ostinato rhythm gives an impression of the after-effects of hatred in Armide's soul , the title heroine only finds her way back to the vocal line after a disturbed stammering, so that the melodic rounding becomes a mirror for Armides' regained inner composure ”.
Gluck thought Armide was the best of his operas. He wrote that he had succeeded in differentiating the expression of the individual characters so far that one could immediately see whether Armide or someone else was singing. This already applies to the opening scene, in which the lyrical dance music of the two confidants Phénice and Sidonie clearly differs from the warlike music of Armides. Hidraot is dignified and determined; Renaud and the rest of the knights were characterized by a heroic, occasionally cantilever style. The extremely differentiated figure of Armide, however, dominates the work and degrades all other figures to types. A larger aria is only dedicated to Renaud. This, “Plus j'observe ces lieux” (second act, scene 3), contrasts the song of the birds suggested by the solo flute with the flow of the muted violins in eighth notes. Armides flight at the end of the second act is accompanied by sixteenth-note triplets of the flute and violins, the syncopated split violas and a solo oboe above. The love duet in the fifth act is one of Gluck's most passionate pieces of music, and the final scene of the opera is also one of his best works. After the final conflict between Armide and Renaud, the opera ends with a "fading aftermath with a ghostly D major sound that does not provoke loud applause, but leaves the audience to their thoughts" (Croll).
Work history
With Armide, the fifth of his operas composed for Paris, Gluck took inspiration from the French tradition of Jean-Baptiste Lully and Jean-Philippe Rameau . This is particularly clear from the fact that he used a libretto by Philippe Quinault to the exact word , which Lully himself had set to music a good 90 years earlier and premiered in 1686. Lully's opera Armide was considered a kind of French national opera and was still played in 1764 - one of the performances or rehearsals for it could have seen Gluck. The libretto is based on an episode from Tasso's epic La Gerusalemme liberata from 1575. Gluck had been familiar with the subject since 1761 at the latest from a popular performance of Tommaso Traetta's Armida in Vienna.
Gluck only deleted the prologue from Quinault's libretto and added four verses in the fourth scene of the third act. These come from François-Louis Gand Le Bland Du Roullet, the librettist of his previous operas Iphigénie en Aulide and Alceste . In addition, Armide's servants or Ubalde and the Danish knight exchanged the text in a few places.
As can be seen from his letters, Gluck made his first preliminary considerations in November 1775. The composition occupied him for almost two years, with most of the work in the period between his return from Paris after the performance of Alceste in 1776 and his next trip to Paris in May 1777. He used a lot of material from earlier works, in particular from the Telemaco of 1765 and the ballet Don Juan of 1761, but did not do so because of a lack of time, but because he considered these pieces to be particularly suitable for the respective situations. Accordingly, he carefully revised it in order to combine it seamlessly with the newly composed music.
Gluck had ensured that he could schedule any number of rehearsal dates for at least two months and determine the actors for each of the numerous roles. Another condition was that an alternative production would be kept ready in case one of the singers should fail: "Otherwise I'll be happy to keep l'Armide to myself, I've made their music so that it doesn't get out of date so quickly." This led to planning difficulties , as some of the singers had to be withdrawn from ongoing productions.
The first performance on September 23, 1777 in the Académie Royale de musique in Paris took place in the presence of the Queen. Rosalie Levasseur (Armide), Mlle Lebourgeois (Phénice), Mlle Châteauneuf (Sidonie), Nicolas Gélin (Hidraot), Georges Durand (Aronte), Joseph Legros (Renaud), M. Thirot (Artémidore), Henri Larrivée (Ubalde) , Étienne Lainez (Chevalier danois), Céleste Durancy (La Haine), Antoinette Cécile de Saint-Huberty (Melissa, Plaisir and Shepherdess), Anne-Marie-Jeanne Gavaudan "l'aînée" (Lucinde and Naïade). Louis-Joseph Francur was the musical director. The choreography of the dances came from Jean Georges Noverre . The dancers included Gaetano Vestris and Pierre Gardel .
Since the opera differed significantly from the usual works, the audience and the first newspaper reviewers initially reacted with uncertainty. However, Gluck's opponents soon spoke up in the “ Piccinnist dispute ” with their old criticisms. This conflict reached its climax with the performance of Niccolò Piccinnis Roland, which was scheduled for the following year . At the same time, the number of visitors remained high. When Armide temporarily had to give way to Piccini's opera after the 27th performance on January 23, 1778, the Mémoires secrets reported that they had already earned 106,000 livres. Gluck wrote on November 16, 1777 to Baroness Anne von Fries in Vienna about his own impressions:
“Never has a more terrible, more persistent battle been fought than the one I provoked with my opera Armide. The cabal against Iphigenia, Orphée and Alceste were nothing but minor skirmishes of light troops by comparison. [...] The dispute became so heated that after being insulted, there would have been assaults if mutual friends had not ensured order. The daily Journal de Paris is full of it, the publisher is lucky with it, he already has 2500 subscribers in Paris. So there we have the music revolution in France, in all its glory? The enthusiasts tell me, 'Be happy, Monsieur, to have the honor of the persecution that all great geniuses have endured' but I would like to send you to the devil with your fine speeches. "
- Costume pictures
Marie-Thérèse Maillard (Armide), before 1818
Marie-Thérèse Maillard (Armide), before 1818
Jean-Joseph Rousseau (Renaud), Paris after 1780
Henri-Étienne Dérivis (Ubalde), Paris 1811
_-_Paris,_Acad%C3%A9mie_Imp%C3%A9riale_de_Musique-Montansier,_11-06-1811.png)
In Paris Armide stayed in the program until 1837. The parodies L'Opéra de Province (1777) and Madame Terrible (1778) soon appeared . But there were only a few performances in the 18th century. Other productions were:
- 1779 Copenhagen, incomplete concert performance
- 1782 Hanover (in Italian)
- 1783 Kassel
- 1787 Stockholm, with a prologue by Georg Joseph Vogler
- 1805 Berlin, in German translation by Julius von Voß (director: Bernhard Anselm Weber )
- 1808 Vienna, at the Theater an der Wien and in German translation at the Theater am Kärntnertor
- 1820 Berlin, with decorations by Karl Friedrich Schinkel
- 1843 Berlin (Head: Giacomo Meyerbeer )
- 1843 Dresden (direction: Richard Wagner ; Armide: Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient )
- 1844 Paris, on the occasion of the French industrial exhibition with 900 interpreters (director: Hector Berlioz )
- 1853 Karlsruhe, in German translation by Eduard Devrient with recitatives by Joseph Strauss
- 1860 Norwich, concertante
- 1866 Prague, in Czech
- 1877 Leipzig, City Theater
- 1880 Basel
- 1890 Naples, Italian premiere
- 1902 Wiesbaden, "free scenic and textual revision" with musical additions by Josef Schlar as part of the May Festival
- 1905–1913 Paris, 340 performances (Armide: Lucienne Bréval )
- 1906–1928 London, Covent Garden , ten performances, initially in French, 1928 in German (Armide: Lucienne Bréval, Ema Destinová and Frida Leider )
- 1910 New York, Metropolitan Opera (Direction: Arturo Toscanini ; Armide: Olive Fremstad ; Renaud: Enrico Caruso )
- 1911 Milan (direction: Tullio Serafin ; Armide: Eugenia Burzio )
- 1936 Falmoth and 1939 Glasgow, in English translation
- 1962 London (Drury Opera Players)
- 1966 Schwetzingen, heavily abridged German text adaptation by Hans Hartleb (direction: Gerd Albrecht ; Armide: Ingrid Bjoner )
- 1982 London, Christ Church Spitalfields, unabridged French version (director: Richard Hickox ; Armide: Felicity Palmer ; staging: Wolf Siegfried Wagner )
- 1986 Barcelona (Armide: Montserrat Caballé )
- 1999 Milan (direction: Riccardo Muti ; Armide: Anna Caterina Antonacci ; production: Pier Luigi Pizzi )
In 1809 ETA Hoffmann placed Armide at the center of his story Ritter Gluck .
Recordings
- July 11, 1958 (live, concert performance from Turin; abridged): Mario Rossi (conductor), orchestra and choir of the RAI Turin. Anna de Cavalieri (Armide), Ester Orell (Phénice and Lucinde), Anna Moffo (Sidonie), Pierre Mollet (Hidraot), Giuliano Ferrein (Aronte), Mirto Picchi (Renaud), Alfredo Nobile (Artémidore), Renato Cesari (Ubalde) , Tommaso Frascati (Chevalier danois), Jolanda Gardino (La Haine), Irene Gasperoni (Naïade). Melodrama LP: MEL 154 (3).
- 1958 (?): Umberto Cattini (conductor), Orchestra Angelicum di Milano, Coro Polifonico di Torino. Gloria Davy (Armida), Angela Arena (Sidonia), Giuseppe Zampieri (Rinaldo), Maria Teresa Mandalari (La furia), Lidia Cerutti (Lucinda). Angelicum LPA 1009 (1 LP).
- August 10, 1974 (live, in concert from Naples): Wilfried Boettcher (conductor), orchestra and choir of RAI Naples. Viorica Cortez (Armide), Nucci Condò (Phénice), Jane Marsh (Sidonie), Siegmund Nimsgern (Hidraot and Ubalde), Mario Chiappi (Aronte), Jean Dupouy (Renaud), Osvaldo Allemanno (Artémidore), Ezio di Cesare (Chevalier danois ), Hristina Angelakova (La Haine), Nicoletta Panni (Melissa and Plaisir), Bruna Rizzoli (Lucinde), Gloria Foglizzo (Naïade). Voce 61 (3 LP).
- December 29, 1974 (live, in concert from London): Charles Mackerras (conductor), BBC Concert Orchestra , BBC Singers. Geri Brunin (Armide), Janet Hughes (Phénice and Melisse), Janet Price (Sidonie), Thomas Allen (Hidraot and Ubalde), Leslie Fyson (Aronte), Bruce Brewer (Renaud), Philip Langridge (Artémidore), Gerald English (Chevalier danois), Ann Howard (La Haine), Wendy Eathorne (Lucinde and Naïade). Celestial Audio CA 448 (2 CD).
- June 1982 (studio recording; complete): Richard Hickox (conductor), City of London Sinfonia, Richard Hickox Singers. Felicity Palmer (Armide), Sally Burgess (Phénice and Lucinde), Marie Slorach (Sidonie and Melisse), Raimund Herincx (Hidraot), Yaron Windmüller (Aronte), Anthony Rolfe Johnson (Renaud), Adrian Thompson (Artémidore), Stephen Roberts ( Ubalde), Keith Lewis (Chevalier danois), Linda Finnie (La Haine). EMI LP: 29 1238 3, EMI CD: 4 89880 2.
- April 1985 (live from Madrid): Manfred Ramin (conductor), orchestra and choir of the Teatre de la Zarzuela de Madrid. Montserrat Caballé (Armide), Raquel Pierotti (Phénice and Lucinde), Cristina Carlin (Sidonie and Melissa), Enrique Baquerizo (Hidraot), Luis Alvarez (Aronte), Peter Lindroos (Renaud), Rafael Martínez Lledó (Artémidore), Enric Serra ( Ubalde), Antonio Leonel (Chevalier danois), Márta Szirmay (La Haine), Diana Rubino (Naïade), Mercedes Hurtado (Plaisir).
- December 1986 (live from Barcelona): Manfred Ramin (conductor), symphony orchestra and choir of the Gran Teatre del Liceu Barcelona. Montserrat Caballé (Armide), Claudia Eder (Phénice), Maria Jose Gallego (Sidonie), Enrique Baquerizo (Hidraot), Vincenc Esteve (Aronte), Peter Lindroos (Renaud), Rafael Martínez Lledó (Artémidore), Enric Serra (Ubalde), Antonio Leonel (Chevalier danois), Márta Szirmay (La Haine), Mary Downing (Naïade). House of Opera CDBB 527.
- December 7, 1996 (live from Milan): Riccardo Muti (conductor), Pier Luigi Pizzi (production), orchestra and choir of the Teatro alla Scala Milan. Anna Caterina Antonacci (Armide), Adina Nitescu (Phénice and Melisse), Lotte Leitner (Sidonie and Lucinde), Donnie Ray Albert (Hidraot), Marco Camastra (Aronte), Vinson Cole (Renaud), Christian Baumgärtel (Artémidore), Roberto de Candia (Ubalde), Juan Diego Flórez (Chevalier danois), Violeta Urmana (La Haine), Christina Sokmeister (Naïade).
- November / December 1996 (live from Paris): Marc Minkowski (conductor), Les Musiciens du Louvre Grenoble. Mireille Delunsch (Armide), Françoise Masset (Phénice and Melisse), Nicole Heaston (Sidonie and Lucinde), Laurent Naouri (Hidraot), Vincent Le Texier (Aronte), Charles Workman (Renaud), Yann Beuron (Artémidore and Chevalier danois), Brett Polegato (Ubalde), Ewa Podles (La Haine), Valérie Gabail (Naïade), Magdalena Kožená (Plaisir). DG Archive Production CD: 459 616-2.
- May 14, 1999 (live from Milan): Riccardo Muti (conductor), Pier Luigi Pizzi (production), orchestra and choir of the Teatro alla Scala Milan. Anna Caterina Antonacci (Armide), Paul Groves (Renaud), Juan Diego Flórez (Artémidore), Violeta Urmana (La Haine), Lotte Leitner (Lucinde).
Web links
- Armide, Wq.45 : Sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project
- Libretto (French), Paris 1777. Digitized at Google Books
- Libretto (German), Berlin 1805. Digitized at Google Books
- Libretto (Italian), Milan 1889. Digitized version of the Museo internazionale e biblioteca della musica di Bologna
- Libretto (Italian), Milan 1911. Digitized in the Internet Archive
- Armide (Christoph Willibald Gluck) in the Corago information system of the University of Bologna
- Manuscripts and performances (1770–1830) by Armide in the DFG opera project
- Discography about Armide at Operadis
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Klaus Hortschansky : Armide. In: Piper's Encyclopedia of Musical Theater. Volume 2: Works. Donizetti - Henze. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1987, ISBN 3-492-02412-2 , pp. 453-456.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Jeremy Hayes: Armide (ii). In: Grove Music Online (English; subscription required).
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i Gerhard Croll , Renate Croll: Gluck. His life. His music. Bärenreiter, Kassel 2010, ISBN 978-3-7618-2166-4 .
- ↑ a b c Robert Maschka: Armide. In: Rudolf Kloiber , Wulf Konold , Robert Maschka: Handbuch der Oper. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag / Bärenreiter, 9th, expanded, revised edition 2002, ISBN 3-423-32526-7 , pp. 202–206.
- ↑ a b Armide (Gluck). In: Reclam's Opernlexikon. Philipp Reclam jun., 2001. Digital Library, Volume 52, p. 187.
- ↑ September 23, 1777: “Armide”. In: L'Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia ..
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i Christoph Willibald Gluck. In: Andreas Ommer: Directory of all opera complete recordings. Zeno.org , volume 20.
- ^ Incorporation of Umberto Cattini (1958) in the discography on Armide at Operadis.