Lully: Armide

High-Energy, Elegant Mix of Traditional and Modern
The first time I viewed this production on European television I was blown away. I have seen each of William Christie's renditions of Rameau's operas staged (well... on DVD) and each set has been a treasure, not simply for Christie's fresh, suave interpretations of oft-neglected gems of French opera, but for the visual treats the directors and designers provide to the viewer.

There is just something about French baroque opera that benefits from regietheater. I was eager to see Christie and his artistic team take on an opera from the father of French opera, Jean-Baptiste Lully. He presents in this DVD set Lully's last complete tragedie-lyrique, Armide. As an opera, the story of the sorceress Armida and the crusader Rinaldo has been done almost to death. Composers from Handel (Rinaldo), Salieri (Armida) and Glueck (who used the same libretto as did Lully) set it to music. To produce such a hackneyed story for modern audiences requires not only a fresh look at the music...

What Tradition?
Productions of any opera by Wagner, Puccini, Strauss, even by Alban Berg necessarily take account of a living performance tradition, based on a continuum of interpretations stretching back to the premieres at which the composer himself would have been in attendance. There is no such living tradition pertinent to baroque opera. The thread was cut! "Baroque opera" as we know it is an invention of our own era, and an expression of our own aesthetics. The paradox, however, is that the majority of recent baroque opera stagings have been aesthetically bi-polar; the musicians have consistently and fervently striven for "historically informed performance practices", using original instruments and authentic baroque vocal technique. Meanwhile, the stage directors, dance choreographers, costumers and set designers have self-consciously striven to captivate audiences with a diametrically opposite modernism: witty anachronism, surreal stagecraft, jazzy dance, effects borrowed from Cirque du...

Sheer Delight!
I am overwhelmed with enthusiasm for this production! It is sheer delight! I'm always leery of modern productions of the old masters (just look at the messes that have been made of Handel's beautiful operas). In the present case the director Robert Carsen has managed to produce a tasteful, fully artistic production that compliments the musical brilliance of William Christie's superb orchestra. Tasteful is the key; having Armide in brilliant scarlet and the rest of the cast in a silver grey was a stroke of genius. The ballets were fine and fit well with the action. Many of the same people were in the production of Rameau's Les Paladins where the music was superb but the action and dance were like Monty Python on steroids. Here the music was complimented by the actions on stage. The singing of all the many roles was well done. In particular the Armide of Stephanie d'Oustrac was particularly exciting. Her rendering of "Enfin, il est en ma puissance" was the high point of the opera; it is...

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