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Updated: June 19, 2025
These lies and false stories were put to flight one evening when the Abbé Arnaud, one of Gluck's most ardent adherents, declared in an aristocratic company, that the Chevalier was returning to France with an "Orlando" and an "Armide" in his portfolio. "Piccini is also working on an 'Orlando," spoke up a follower of that redoubtable Italian.
To cap the climax, Piccini had finished his opera, which was duly brought out and met with a brilliant reception. Indeed its success was greater than that won by "Armide," much to the delight of the Piccinists. Of course the natural outcome was that the other party should do something to surpass the work of their rivals. Marie Antoinette was besought to prevail on Gluck to write another opera.
He had not yet grasped the fact that in the noblest music truth and beauty are one and the same thing. In 'Armide, produced in 1777, he made another step forward. The libretto was the same as that used by Lulli nearly a hundred years before. The legend, already immortalised by Tasso, was strangely different from the classical stories which had hitherto inspired his greatest works.
Nothing more perfect than the rapid change of scenery. Meteors, apparitions, divinities borne on clusters of clouds or in cars, appear and disappear, as if by enchantment, exhibiting situations the most picturesque and striking. BOULAY, the principal machinist, is, perhaps, the first in his line in Europe. In the opera of Armide, I have seen him raise into the air nearly one half of the theatre.
H. T. Finck tells us that the sonata form is illogical, forgetting perhaps that once it served its purpose; Jean Marnold dubbed Armide an oeuvre bâtarde; John F. Runciman called Parsifal "decrepit stuff," while Ernest Newman assures us that it is "marvellous"; Pierre Lalo and Philip Hale disagree on the subject of Debussy's La Mer while W. J. Henderson and James Huneker wrangle over Richard Strauss's Don Quixote.
He was proud of his disciple, and he delighted in her astonishment, when, having made sure that Armide II. had won, he led her back to the Pari Mutuel, and, bidding her hold out her hands, saw that forty louis were poured into them.
The forest with its trees, grass and rocks entirely disappeared in the flies taking Renaud and Armide with it and the spectator was left, for some unknown reason, looking at a background surrounded by mountains.
The supernatural terrors of 'Der Freischütz' must not make us forget the terrific finale to 'Don Giovanni, nor can the most glowing picture from 'Euryanthe' erase memories of Rinaldo and the Crusaders in 'Armide. The romantic movement, however, as interpreted by Weber, aimed definitely at certain things, which had not previously come within the scope of music, though for many years they had been the common property of art and literature.
Re-orchestration is not absolutely necessary and Meyerbeer's is no more reprehensible than those with which Mozart enriched Handel's Messe and La Fête d'Alexandre. What was inadmissible was not deciding frankly for one version or the other. It was like a badly patched coat which shows the old cloth in one place and the new in another. Afterwards I saw Armide treated in another way.
On the first night many of the critics were against the opera, which was called too noisy. The composer, however, felt he had done some of his best work in "Armide"; that the music was written in such style that it would not grow old, at least not for a long time.
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