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Updated: June 19, 2025
Then, by a marvel of mechanism, there appeared to the sound of ultramodern music, Renaud sleeping on a bed of state, with Armide standing at the foot and stretching forth her hand with a gesture of authority, declaiming in a solemn tone, "Rinaldo, I love you!" and the curtain fell to the applause of the audience. We owe much to Germany in music, for it has produced many great musicians.
In the second act Renaud went to sleep at the back of the stage, forcing Armide to speak the whole of the beautiful scene which follows, one of the most important in the part, at a distance from the footlights and with her back to the audience.
"Great as was the success of 'Armide," wrote the Princess de Lamballe, "no one prized this beautiful work more highly than the composer of it.
At Navarino, where he commanded the Armide, he came up and lay with true fraternal chivalry between the Turkish ships and a British frigate that was suffering very much from their fire, which same service the British corvette Rose rendered him in return, and with equal gallantry, towards the close of the engagement.
Pelletan brought me into the work, the two Iphigenie had been published; Alceste was about to be, and Armide was ready. In Armide Damcke had been entirely carried away by his zeal for "improvements" a zeal that can do so much harm. It was time this was stopped. Not only had he corrected imaginary faults here and there, but he had also inserted things of his own invention.
He was passionately enamored of it; he told the Queen the air of France had rejuvenated his creative powers, and the sight of her majesty had given such a wonderful impetus to the flow of ideas, that his composition had become like herself, angelic, sublime." The growing success of "Armide" only added fuel to the flame of controversy which had been stirred up.
In the evenings there would be a concert, with the artists from the Conservatoire to sing the chorus from Armide, "Jamais en ces beaux lieux," the orchestra performing the symphony in A, and a solo on the horn by Vivier; or else Auber would bring the Opera Comique troupe, Roger, Chollet, and Anna Thillon; or else Arnot played L'Humonste with Mdme. Doche. There were Cabinet Ministers there as well.
He had taken the greatest pains in composing it, and declared that if it were not properly rehearsed at the Opera he would not let them have it at all, but would retain the work himself for his own pleasure. He wrote to a friend: "I have put forth what little strength is left in me, into 'Armide'; I confess I should like to finish my career with it."
My imagination was so warmed by the composition of this work that I had the strongest desire to hear it performed, and would have given anything to have seen and heard the whole in the manner I should have chosen, which would have been that of Lully, who is said to have had 'Armide' performed for himself only.
Interest will be felt in some of Sophie Arnould's more distinguished art contemporaries. Among these, the highest place must be given to Mme. Antoinette Cécile Saint Huberty, née Gavel. Born in Germany of French descent, she made her first appearance in Paris in a small part in Gluck's "Armide."
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