Armide

Gluck’s opera Armide is part of a rich tradition of dramatic works inspired by the epic poem Gerusalemme liberate (Jerusalem Liberated) by the Italian poet Torquato Tasso. First staged in 1777, it was the fifth of seven operas Gluck wrote for the Académie Royale de Musique in Paris, and, by setting the libretto written nearly 90 years earlier for Lully’s last opera, he deliberately sought to pay homage to earlier traditions, as well as challenge them. The opera is set in Damascus at the time of the First Crusade. Although it has a surfeit of characters—15 named roles—much of the drama revolves around a single protagonist. Renaud, a celebrated crusader, spends much of the opera under the sorceress Armide’s spell, but it is he who is the catalyst for the opera’s central drama—Armide’s struggle to choose between love (for Renaud) or vengeance. Her psychological journey, which dominates the opera, was presaged in Lully’s original setting (1686), and Handel’s Alcina (1735), but Gluck offers an entirely deeper personal exploration. The opera contains some of Gluck’s most sensuous music, like Renaud’s sleep scene in Act II and swathes of the fourth and fifth acts. Conversely, his supernatural music and evocation of evil in Act III is demonically effective. The fast-moving action is carried by some of Gluck’s most flexible music, with relatively few formal numbers (arias and ensembles) to interrupt the flow. Armide’s complex character is painted with infinite subtlety largely through the use of speech-like recitative and expressive lyrical phrases (arioso).