The premiere of Lully's Armide took place in Paris on February 15, 1686, at Lully's public theatre in the Palais-Royal, after being postponed due to illnesses of both Lully and King Louis XIV.
Composition History
Armide was Lully's last complete tragédie en musique and his final collaboration with librettist Philippe Quinault.
Composer Biography
Jean-Baptiste Lully, the composer, was the most powerful musician at the court of Louis XIV and the first important composer of French opera.
Cultural Impact
The story of Armide and Renaud, based on Torquato Tasso's epic Gerusalemme liberata, was well-known and popular, having been translated into French multiple times and dramatized in earlier French court ballets.
Critical Reception
Armide was an instant and enduring success, a crowd-pleaser at its initial production and a perennial favorite of audiences and critics in the eighteenth century.
Compositional Technique
Lully's music in Armide is characterized by artful arrangements of linked segments, similar to a formal French garden, combining miniature songs, instrumental introductions, and expressive recitative.
Historical Context
King Louis XIV, who selected the subject for Armide's libretto, never saw the opera, possibly due to Lully's involvement in a sex scandal and the court's atmosphere of austerity.
