Armide, which premiered at the Paris Opéra February 15, 1686,
was the last tragédie lyrique on which Jean-Baptiste Lully collaborated
with his favorite librettist, Philippe Quinault. Quinault retired from the stage
after Armide, and Lully died a year later on March 22, 1687. From its
first performance, Armide was recognized as their masterpiece.
Armide is unusual among Lully and Quinault's tragédies lyriques
in that it concentrates on the psychological development of a single character.
Lully's patron, Louis XIV, selected the story of Armide in May of 1685 from
among several offered by Quinault. Armide is based on a section of Gerusalemme
liberata, a popular epic poem by the Italian poet Torquato Tasso which uses
the story of the capture of Jerusalem by Christians during the First Crusade
(1096-99) as the starting point for a fabulous extravaganza of heroism, villainy,
war, star-crossed lovers, sorcery, bad temper, warrior maidens, and eventual
total victory by the forces of good. The section on which Armide is based
tells the story of Armide, a sorceress who falls in love with the Crusader Renaud,
her sworn enemy. According to Lully's contemporary Le Cerf de la Viéville,
Armide was known as "the ladies' opera," probably because of its emphasis
on Armide's internal conflict.
The Prologue, set in "a palace," is a dialogue between the goddesses
Wisdom and Glory. They praise the Hero whom they both love (a reference to Louis
XIV, Lully's patron), and summarize the experience of Renaud, who in the end chooses
Glory and Wisdom over his love for Armide.
The first act begins in a great square "ornamented by an Arch
of Triumph" in the city of Damascus. Phénice and Sidonie praise Armide's
triumphs over the Crusaders whom she has taken captive. The sorceress, however,
is aware only that she has been unable to prevail over Renaud. She expresses her
anger and frustration in a majestic air, Je
ne triomphe pas du plus vaillant de tous ("I have not conquered the most
valiant of all"). Armide's uncle, the sorceror Idraot, urges his niece to choose
a husband, but she will consider only someone who can conquer Renaud--if anyone
can. Arontes, who has been left guarding Armide's prisoners, staggers in dripping
blood and drops dead after announcing that Renaud has rescued them.
Renaud is discovered in the second act in a "pleasant countryside"
with Artemidore, one of the knights whom he has rescued. After assuring Artemidore
that his heart is safe from Armide's spells, Renaud sends him away. Idraot and
Armide conjure up demons to put Renaud to sleep. The hero admires his surroundings
and prepares himself for sleep in his well-known air de sommeil ("sleep
aria"), Plus j'observe ces lieux ("The
more I observe this place"). The demons, in the shape of nymphs and shepherds,
weave their spells over Renaud in a ballet sequence. Armide enters, intending
to kill Renaud as he sleeps. She is overcome by love for him instead, and decides
to spirit him away and bind him to her through sorcery. Her recitative monologue,
Enfin, il est en ma puissance ("At
last, he is in my power"), is considered among the greatest of Lully's dramatic
recitatives.
Act three takes place in a desert, where Armide is struggling
with the perils of success. Her spells have brought Renaud entirely into her power.
Nevertheless, she is troubled because while she is deeply in love with the hero,
he is bound to her only by her spells. In her monologue air Venez,
venez, Haine implacable ("Come, come, implacable Hate"), Armide invokes
the spirit of Hate to rescue her from her love for Renaud. Hate and her followers
perform a powerful invocation in which they break Cupid's arrows and gloat over
their impending victory over Love. In the end, Armide cannot give up Renaud and
sends Hate away. Hate curses Armide, condemning her to the punishment of undying
love.
The fourth act brings several of Renaud's companions to the desert
of Act three in search of their leader, where they are bewildered and led astray
by monsters and traps laid by Armide.
Armide's enchanted palace provides the setting for Act five,
which begins with the only love scene between Armide and Renaud. Armide leaves
the Pleasures and a troop of Fortunate Lovers to amuse Renaud in an extended divertissement
while she retires to the Underworld to consider her situation. In her absence,
the Danish knights from Act four discover Renaud, thereby breaking her spell.
Armide returns in time to confront Renaud as he leaves her, imploring him to take
her with him as a captive if he will not remain as her lover. He hesitates, but
Duty and the call of Glory overcome his feelings for her; he leaves with his companions.
Armide, left alone, laments his loss and her inescapable love in her celebrated
final monologue, Le perfide Renaud me fuit
("The perfidious Renaud flees from me"). The demons destroy her enchanted palace,
and Armide exits in a flying chariot.
Besides Lully, well-known composers who have written operas
about the love of Armide for Renaud include Antonio Salieri (Armida, Vienna,
1771), Christoph Willibald Gluck, (Armide, Paris, 1777), Joseph Haydn (Armida,
Esterháza, 1784); Gioachino Rossini (Armida, Naples, 1817), and
Antonín Dvorák (Armida, Prague, 1904). Gluck used substantially
the same Quinault libretto as Lully. In all, there are almost 100 operas and ballets
based on the same story.
