Jean-Baptiste Lully, Armide (1686)

More Lully, baby! Yes! I'm a glutton for punishment! This is the last opera he completed before dying due to bashing himself in the foot while conducting a concert and refusing to have his leg amputated and developing gangrene that spead to his brain. There is no part of that story that I can wrap my head around. But the point is, if it's his last opera, maybe it's also his most musically sophisticated? Who can say?

We start with a prologue dedicated, of course, to Louis XIV that seems over-the-top in its fawning even by the standards of these things. Usually there's at least some light allegorical cover, but here, although it doesn't mention him by name, it's just an endless litany of fullsome praise. Hey, I get it, if you grow up thinking you're a literal god, you just take this stuff as your due, but I can't help feeling viscerally embarrassed on his behalf. This is pathetic, dude. Maybe it's just because we have a president who completely melts down anytime he's not the subject of sycophantic obsequiousness from his toadies. According to this, Lully was kind of on the outs with the king at the time, so apparently extreme measures were called for. Certainly, he would want to preserve his set-up, which was pretty sweet until he fell victim to the apparent French custom of using fifty-pound iron maces for conducting.

ANYWAY, once we get past that, this is based, at least to some degree, on Tasso. Armide is the Saracen sorceress, and she's used magic to ensnare the knight Renaud and make him love her. However, she doesn't like the fact that he only loves her because of her magic, so she summons Hate to make her not love him, but then she changes her mind and is left to her fate. They spend some time together, but then he leaves: not, surprisingly, because he's been disenchanted and realizes she's evil--he assures her that he still loves her--but just because, goshdarnit, he loves Glory even more (there are a couple of knights that come to "save" him, but they're weirdly irrelevant to what actually happens). As you do. She is left bereft, and possibly kills herself, as in this production, though it's not one hundred percent clear from the libretto. Either way would work.

So, actually, I'm happy to say, I did end up liking this a lot more than either of my previous Lully experiences. Whether that's because of the music itself, the human drama, the performances, or the production--who can say. Probably some mixture. As for the music: it sounds much like the Lully of yore, and yet...I don't know! I found it involving in ways that I didn't in those earlier works. There's one scene in particular, at the climax of Act II, in which Armide is fighting against her feelings for Renauld, trying to decide whether to stab him, and whoa, the music and the whole situation were super-dramatic. I didn't think JB had it in him! Armide's drama is actually highly compelling; a very well-drawn character. You cannot but sympathize, especially because Stéphanie d'Oustrac is truly excellent in the role. This is really her show; all the other characters, Renaud included, are extremely secondary, so it's important that she's good enough. And d'Oustrac is more than. For what it's worth, Renaud is played by Paul Agnew, and Hatred by Laurent Naouri--these three seem to be in every French baroque production.

The production is doubtless polarizing, but I thought it was very good (and that upload is doubtless super-illegal, but the DVD is long out-of-print, so I think it's justified). The prologue is presented in the modern-day Palace of Versailles, sung by tour guides, with visitors doing the dances. It's fun and funny, and it's hard for me to imagine why you'd want to watch a completely po-faced tribute to some dumb dead king. The main action of the opera is framed as the dream of one of these tourists, who sneakily climbs over the cordon and takes a nap in one of the antique beds. When the main action starts, it's in a more or less period setting, but one that works well, and that isn't afraid to depict the knights that come to rescue Renaud as random tourists, which makes sense if it's all a guy's dream.

I may regret it, but this makes me want to see more by Lully. I definitely feel less alienated from him than I did in the past.