ARTMUSELONDON An Enlightened Staging of Gluck’s ‘Armide’, a Tale of a Tough Woman Scorned at L’Opéra Comique Paris. NOVEMBER 7, 2022NOVEMBER 7, 2022 Opera Comique’s 2022 Production of Armide by Gluck This weekend I travelled to Paris to the newly restored...
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ARTMUSELONDON An Enlightened Staging of Gluck’s ‘Armide’, a Tale of a Tough Woman Scorned at L’Opéra Comique Paris. NOVEMBER 7, 2022NOVEMBER 7, 2022 Opera Comique’s 2022 Production of Armide by Gluck This weekend I travelled to Paris to the newly restored Opéra Comique where a new production of Gluck’s Armide has opened. You could be forgiven for not ever having heard of Armide. It was conceived in the 17th century with a score by Lully before Gluck came up with a new musical setting in the late 18th century. Taken from a highly regarded libretto by the French dramatist Philippe Quinault (1635- 1688), Armide it is essentially a love story. In the background we have the religious crusades. Armide, a warrior princess, a sorceress, has an enemy Renaud, a Christian knight. Unlike all her male enemies, Renaud is indifferent to her charms. Gluck took up the gauntlet of rewriting Armide aged sixty. By then he was a composer of great renown, and a bit of a rebel with big plans to reform oper
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