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Also available: 2 CDs

Jean-Baptiste LULLY The Tragedy of Armide

Houtzeel • Getchell Loup • Sharp Monoyios • Dubrow Boutté • Perry McCulloch • McCredie Opera Lafayette 8.557993 Ryan Brown 8.660209-10 20 660209-10 bk Lully 8/15/08 2:18 PM Page 2

Jean-Baptiste LULLY Also available: (1632-1687) The Tragedy of Armide Libretto by Philippe Quinault (1635-1688) Edition for the Œuvres complètes by Lois Rosow Publisher: Verlag Olms, Hildesheim • Distribution: Barenreiter

Armide ...... Stephanie Houtzeel, Mezzo-soprano Renaud ...... Robert Getchell, Tenor Hidraot; Ubalde ...... François Loup, Bass Artémidore; La Haine ...... William Sharp, Baritone Phénice; Lucinde ...... Ann Monoyios, Soprano Sidonie ...... Miriam Dubrow, Soprano Le Chevalier danois; Un Amant fortuné ...... Tony Boutté, Tenor Aronte ...... Darren Perry, Baritone Une Bergère héroïque ...... Adria McCulloch, Soprano Une Naïade ...... Tara McCredie, Soprano 8.660118-19 Opera Lafayette • Ryan Brown

Opera Lafayette would like to thank The Florence Gould Foundation, The Marpat Foundation, Areva, Inc., Pernod Ricard USA, Jerald and Alice Clark, Bill and Cari Gradison, and the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center for their help in making this recording possible. Opera Lafayette is also deeply grateful to Marie-Hélène Forget for her extraordinary efforts to help bring music of the French Baroque to the United States. 8.660196-97

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Des portions de ce commentaire sont parues pour la ordonne aux démons de se transformer en zéphyrs et de CD 1 55:33 Act II première fois dans les Œuvres complètes de J.-B. Lully, les emporter au loin. ser. 3, vol. 14 (Hildesheim, 2003) ; reproduites avec 1 Ouverture 2:18 Scene 1 l’aimable autorisation de l’Association Lully et de Acte III : Armide se lamente d’avoir livré son cœur à 9 “Invincible Héros, c’est par votre courage” 4:14 Georg Olms Verlag. Renaud. Phénice et Sidonie exhortent Armide de Act I (Artémidore, Renaud) s’abandonner à l’amour, mais Armide est troublée car si elle aime éperdument Renaud, seule sa magie le lie à Scene 1 Scene 2 Synopsis elle. Armide invoque l’esprit de la Haine pour la 2 Ritournelle 5:53 0 Prélude 3:59 délivrer de son vain amour. Malgré la puissante “Dans un jour de triomphe” “Arrêtons-nous ici; c’est dans ce lieu fatal” Acte I : Armide, princesse guerrière et magicienne, est invocation de la Haine et de sa suite, Armide n’arrive (Phénice, Sidonie, Armide) (Hidraot, Armide) louée par ses confidentes Phénice et Sidonie pour sa pas à renoncer à Renaud, et elle les renvoie. La Haine 3 Prélude 2:13 victoire sur les croisés qu’elle a capturés. Toutefois, maudit Armide, la condamnant à aimer éternellement. “Un songe affreux” Scene 3 Armide exprime sa colère et sa frustration car elle n’est (Armide, Sidonie) ! Prélude 6:03 pas parvenue à triompher de Renaud, le plus vaillant des Acte IV : Ubalde et le Chevalier danois, deux des “Plus j’observe ces lieux, et plus je les admire” chevaliers chrétiens. Hidraot, l’oncle d’Armide, incite compagnons de Renaud, cherchent leur héros pour le Scene 2 (Renaud) sa nièce à se marier, mais elle déclare que si elle devait soustraire à Armide. Ils parviennent à résister aux 4 Prélude 4:40 succomber à l’amour, elle ne pourrait épouser qu’un tentations et aux dangereux délices que la magicienne a “Armide, que le sang qui m’unit avec vous” Scene 4 homme capable de vaincre Renaud. Alors que l’on mis sur leur route. (Hidraot, Armide) @ “Au temps heureux où l’on sçait plaire” 7:48 célèbre la victoire d’Armide, Aronte, qui gardait les (Une Naïade) prisonniers, entre, blessé à mort, et annonce que Renaud Acte V : Armide et Renaud se déclarent leur passion, Scene 3 Prélude a délivré les captifs. Armide et Hidraot jurent qu’un tel mais un sombre pressentiment hante Armide, qui veut 5 Marche 3:32 “Ah! quelle erreur! quelle folie!” ennemi n’échappera pas à leur vengeance. prendre le conseil des Enfers. Elle se retire et laisse les “Armide est encor plus aimable” (Chœur) Plaisirs et des Amants fortunés divertir Renaud. En son (Hidraot, Chœur) Premier Air Acte II : Artémidore, l’un des chevaliers sauvés par absence, Ubalde et le Chevalier danois découvrent 6 Sarabande: Rondeau 5:49 Second Air, “On s’étonnerait moins que la saison nouvelle” Renaud, fait l’éloge de son libérateur et l’adjure de fuir Renaud et brisent le sortilège d’Armide. Revenue à “ Suivons Armide, et chantons sa Victoire” (Une Bergère héroïque) l’endroit où règne Armide. Renaud assure Artémidore temps, elle supplie celui qu’elle aime de ne pas la quitter (Phénice, Chœur) First Air que son cœur est à l’abri des sortilèges d’Armide. ou de l’emmener captive avec lui. Le Devoir et la Gloire “Que la douceur d’un triomphe est extrême” (Chœur) Hidraot et Armide invoquent des démons pour endormir obligent Renaud à abandonner Armide, mais il exprime (Sidonie, Chœur) Renaud. Le héros admire le paysage qui l’entoure et la pitié qu’elle lui inspire. Restée seule, la magicienne Scene 5 s’assied pour se reposer. Les démons, qui ont pris au cœur brisé déclare qu’il ne lui reste que l’espoir de se Scene 4 # Prélude 4:40 l’apparence de nymphes et de bergers, ensorcellent venger. Elle donne alors aux démons l’ordre de détruire 7 “O Ciel! O disgrace cruelle!” 1:52 “Enfin il est en ma puissance” Renaud. Armide entre, bien décidée à le tuer dans son son palais enchanté, espérant ainsi enterrer à jamais son (Aronte, Armide, Hidraot, Chœur) (Armide) sommeil, mais elle s’éprend de lui et se dit que sa plus amour maudit. grande victoire serait d’employer sa magie pour le faire 8 Entr’acte 0:41 $ Entr’acte 1:50 tomber sous son emprise et l’obliger à l’aimer. Elle Traductions françaises de David Ylla-Somers (Marche)

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CD 2 66:16 Scene 2 roi et faisant une référence cryptée à un “monstre” malgré lui, songeur, chagriné de l’infortune d’Armide.” 7 “Voici la charmante Retraite” 7:49 terrassé par le monarque. L’événement politique qui La musique de Lully se caractérise par l’habile Act III (Lucinde, Chœur) occupait le plus les Parisiens début 1686 était la arrangement de segments liés et emboîtés rappelant Gavotte révocation de l’Edit de Nantes du 22 octobre 1685, assez les plantations d’un jardin à la française. Des airs 1 Scene 1 2:22 Canaries aboutissement d’années de persécutions contre les miniatures et de brèves introductions instrumentales se Prélude “Allons, qui vous retient encore?” Huguenots. Ainsi, le “monstre” était le protestantisme, mêlent à des passages de récitatif mélodieux et “Ah! si la liberté me doit être ravie” (Ubalde, Le Chevalier danois, Lucinde, Chœur) diabolisé ici comme dans toute la littérature officielle. expressifs pour former le dessin de structures scéniques (Armide) Métaphoriquement, on peut aussi déceler ce thème dans de grande envergure. Les cinq actes étaient exécutés Scene 3 la tragédie proprement dite, le vertueux croisé européen sans interruption, de courts entractes musicaux 2 Scene 2 8:44 8 Prélude 1:37 Renaud symbolisant la France catholique, et la accompagnant de spectaculaires changements de décor. “Que ne peut point votre art?” “Je tourne en vain” séduisante princesse et magicienne moyen-orientale Les épisodes de ballet de chaque acte, qu’il s’agisse (Phénice, Sidonie, Armide) (Le Chevalier danois, Ubalde) Armide représentant l’hérésie protestante. d’une cérémonie, d’une scène d’enchantement pastoral Pourtant, Renaud n’est pas le principal protagoniste ou du terrifiant rituel de la Haine et de son cortège, 3 Scene 3 1:09 9 Entr’acte (Air) 0:29 de l’opéra. Sur la toile de fond de l’allégorie royale réunissaient des troupes d’interprètes dans une action Prélude conventionnelle, l’héroïne Armide est en proie un commune, les danseurs représentant les corps des “Venez, Haine implacable” Act V terrible conflit intérieur, partagée entre l’amour et la personnages collectifs et le chœur leurs voix. A deux (Armide) vengeance, et c’est son histoire qui domine l’intrigue. A reprises, le livret fait appel à une machinerie scénique Scene 1 propos de la merveilleuse actrice-chanteuse Marie recherchée : lors de l’entracte reliant les actes II et III, 4 Scene 4 8:00 0 Ritournelle 7:17 (“Marthe”) Le Rochois, qui créa le rôle, le biographe du durant lequel des démons déguisés en zéphyrs Prélude “Armide, vous m’allez quitter?” XVIIIè siècle Evrard Titon du Tillet écrivit : “Quel inoffensifs emportent Armide et Renaud endormi loin “Je réponds à tes vœux” (Renaud, Armide) ravissement que de la voir dans la cinquième scène du de la rive champêtre, et à la fin de l’opéra, quand le (La Haine, Chœur) deuxième acte …, un poignard à la main, prête à palais enchanté d’Armide s’effondre. Tout au long de Premier Air Scene 2 transpercer la poitrine de Renaud, endormi sur un lit de l’opéra, l’orchestre dépeint les caractères et “Amour, sors pour jamais” ! Passacaille “Les Plaisirs ont choisi pour asile” 9:28 verdure ! La fureur l’animait à sa vue, l’amour vint et l’atmosphère — comme ces murmures de flûtes et ces Second Air (Un Amant fortuné, Chœur) s’empara de son cœur ; l’une et l’autre l’affectèrent tour cordes avec sourdine du sommeil enchanté de Renaud, “Sors du sein d’Armide” “Allez, éloignez-vous de moi” à tour. La pitié et la tendresse s’ensuivirent, et l’amour ces amples intervalles et ces rythmes acérés quand (La Haine, Armide) (Renaud) remporta la victoire.” Jean-Laurent Lecerf de la Armide entre le poignard à la main, ce grondement Viéville, écrivant en 1705 au sujet d’une reprise de répétitif de la ligne de basse de la cérémonie de la 5 Entr’acte (Second Air) 0:37 Scene 3 l’ouvrage ayant eu lieu environ dix ans après la création, Haine, ou ces variations hypnotiques, séduisantes et @ Ritournelle 2:33 remarquait : “Quand je me représente la Rochois, cette incessantes au-dessus d’une boucle harmonique dans la Act IV “Il est seul” petite femme plus toute jeune couronnée de cheveux longue danse (une passacaille) de l’acte V. (Ubalde, Renaud, Le Chevalier danois) noirs et armée d’une canne noire ornée d’un ruban de la L’édition s’appuie principalement sur la partition Scene 1 couleur du feu, parcourant cette grande scène, qu’elle éditée sous la direction de Lully en 1686, avec des 6 Prélude 5:33 Scene 4 remplissait presque à elle toute seule, et exhalant parfois informations additionnelles tirées de deux parties de “Nous ne trouvons par tout que des Gouffres ouverts” # “Renaud? Ciel! O mortelle peine!” 5:51 un chant merveilleux, je vous assure que j’en frissonne violon manuscrites (les seules du matériau orchestral (Le Chevalier danois, Ubalde) (Armide, Renaud, Le Chevalier danois, Ubalde) encore.” En fin de compte, ni la beauté et le pouvoir original qui nous soient parvenues), du livret imprimé Air d’Armide, ni l’armée de démons qu’elle a sous ses pour la création et d’un groupe de parties vocales et Scene 5 ordres (et qui effectuent quelques apparitions déguisés instrumentales provenant de productions parisiennes $ Prélude en innocentes figures pastorales) ne peuvent la sauver d’Armide au XVIIIè siècle. Pour la présente version, “Le perfide Renaud me fuit” 4:44 d’elle-même. Selon Lecerf, après le rideau final, “le nous avons choisi d’ajouter des parties de percussion. (Armide) spectateur, empli d’une passion qui a crû jusqu’à cet Prélude, Symphonie ultime instant… rentre chez lui profondément ému Lois Rosow

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Armide : Le triomphe suprême de Lully lettre de dédicace au roi en faisant allusion aux Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687) difficultés de la programmation versaillaise : “Sire, de The Tragedy of Armide Armide constitue le point culminant de la longue et toutes les tragédies que j’ay mises en musique voicy fructueuse carrière de Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687), celle dont le Public a tesmoigné estre le plus satisfait: Lully’s Armide had a rich and varied performance scene iv, by deleting one of the Bergère’s airs. In the plus puissant musicien de la cour de Louis XIV et c’est un spectacle où l’on court en foule, et jusqu’icy on history at the Paris Opéra during the eighty years eighteenth century Rebel and Francoeur also made premier compositeur majeur d’opéras français. Bien n’en a point veu qui ait receu plus d’applaudissements; following its début in 1686. Those in charge of the adjustments to this scene, though somewhat differently qu’il ne s’agisse pas de son ultime composition, Armide cependant,c’est de tous les ouvrages que j’ay faits celuy productions, while holding Lully and his librettist and in the context of other stylistic changes. In the fut sa dernière tragédie en musique complète et la que j’estime le moins heureux, puisqu’il n’a pas encore Quinault in the highest esteem and responding with dances of various divertissements and entr’actes we dernière œuvre qu’il écrivit en collaboration avec le eû l’avantage de paroistre devant Vostre Majesté… “ deep enthusiasm to this extraordinary opera, did not have eliminated several repeats, most significantly in librettiste Philippe Quinault. Son succès fut instantané et On pense que Louis XIV ne vit jamais Armide. Il semble hesitate to alter the score and libretto in ways they the Act I Sarabandes which, seen fully choreographed in durable : elle séduisit les foules lors de sa production qu’à cause de l’implication de Lully dans un scandale thought likely to ensure the success of the work. a stage production, would probably prove mesmerizing initiale et demeura l’un des ouvrages préférés du public sexuel l’hiver précédent, ajoutée à l’atmosphère Performers today owe an immense debt of gratitude to and give a grand symmetry to the scene, but seem too et des critiques du XVIIIè siècle. générale d’austérité et de religiosité qui régnait à la cour scholars who, like Lois Rosow in the case of Armide, repetitive for a recording alone. La création, prévue à l’origine pour la cour royale à la fin des années 1680, le roi se soit distancé de celui have created editions and done research which carefully The final but largest change is that we move directly de Versailles mais plusieurs fois reportée parce que le qui avait été son compositeur favori et de l’Opéra de reconstruct for us the original circumstances of a from the Ouverture to the drama of Act I, suppressing compositeur et le roi étaient souffrants, eut lieu à Paris Paris. musical première and provide us with details on the the Prologue, a paean to Louis XIV featuring the le 15 février 1686, au théâtre public de Lully au Palais- Pourtant, c’était Louis XIV en personne qui avait subsequent historical treatments of these works. allegorical characters of Wisdom and Glory. Royal. Une semaine plus tard, Henry Baud de Sainte- choisi le sujet du livret : “Quinault apporta au roi chez For our recording, we have departed from the Historically the Prologue was only dropped in 1761, at Frique décrivit l’événement de manière imagée dans une Madame De Montespan trois livres d’opéra pour cet original 1686 version of Armide in some places. The which time artistic and political sensibilities had lettre adressée à un personnage officiel de la cour hiver… Le roi les trouva tous trois à son gré et choisit changes reflect practical concerns, the differences changed considerably. Still, the public seemed toscane à Florence : “Il y avait une telle foule que plus celui d’Armide.” Alors que la plupart des tragédies en inherent in listening to a recording versus seeing a enthusiastic for this dramatic tale, and in 1777 Gluck personne ne pouvait entrer, et plus de cent spectateurs musique de Quinault ont des sujets mythologiques, production, and dramatic issues addressed in the work’s produced his own Armide without a prologue, which avaient été placés sur la scène au prix d’un louis par tête. principalement puisés dans les Métamorphoses d’Ovide, own eighteenth century performance history. otherwise followed Quinault’s libretto almost exactly Chaque loge contenait dix personnes. Vous savez qu’il les trois dernières (Amadis, Roland, Armide) présentent The first important historical changes in the and went on to have as impressive a performance en suffit de sept pour qu’elles débordent et qu’on se des récits de chevalerie médiévale, tirés des romances performance practice of the work centered around the history in the nineteenth century as Lully’s version did trouve au comble de l’inconfort. L’amphithéâtre, le de Montalvo, de l’Arioste, et du Tasse. D’une part, cette much disputed relevance of Act IV and in particular its in the eighteenth century. Both historically and in our parterre et la galerie étaient un tel enchevêtrement que engouement nouveau pour les croisades est scene iv, during which the knight Ubalde is tempted by own version we are reminded that each generation of l’on ne pouvait le contempler sans en être stupéfié. On compréhensible : à la suite du décès de la reine en 1683, Mélisse, mirroring the previous scenes in which Le performers bequeaths something of its experience to the prétend que Lully reçut 10 000 francs ce jour-là.” Le le roi se préoccupait de plus en plus de religion et de Chevalier danois is tempted by Lucinde. Lecerf de la next, and that interpreting masterpieces such as Armide Mercure galant rapporta que “l’on trouva le texte tout à moralité. D’autre part, les trames de ces opéras Viéville declared in 1705 that “one must cut” this scene, is a living, transformative experience. fait digne de son auteur, ce qui va sans dire puisqu’il constituent des archétypes familiers de la mythologie and it was eliminated from productions as early as 1697. excelle dans des ouvrages de cette nature. Tous furent classique : la magicienne Armide et le guerrier Renaud Rebel and Francoeur, inspecteurs généraux of the Opéra Ryan Brown charmés par l’orchestre et la musique. Le décor semblait auraient tout aussi bien pu être Circé et Ulysse. Quoi in the mid- eighteenth century, cut from a point in scene grandiose et nouveau, notamment le théâtre qui qu’il en soit, l’épopée de Torquato Tasso Gerusalemme iii, though they also lengthened the previous s’effondre. C’est une invention de Monsieur Bérain, le liberata, source de l’histoire d’Armida et Rinaldo, était divertissement. Our choice was simply to go from the Armide: Lully’s ultimate triumph dessinateur du Cabinet du Roy. On s’exclama fort sur la bien connue et très populaire — elle avait plusieurs fois third air of scene iii directly to the entr’acte before Act beauté de toutes les parties qui constituent le cinquième été traduite en français entre 1595 et 1671 — et le récit V, moving smoothly from one triple metre in C major to Armide represents the culmination of the long and acte de cet opéra.” (Le “théâtre qui s’effondre,” image d’Armide notamment avait auparavant été mis en scène another. This addresses some of the larger dramatic fruitful career of Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687), the immortalisée par le frontispice du livret publié, était le dans d’importants ballets de la cour française. concerns of repetitiveness within Act IV and reduces the most powerful musician at the court of Louis XIV and palais magique d’Armide, détruit sur ses ordres par des En fait, cette histoire se prêtait bien à l’allégorie extensive recitative which would otherwise both end the first important composer of French opera. Though démons à la fin de l’opéra.) Lorsque Lully publia la politique. L’opéra débute par un prologue allégorique Act IV and begin Act V. not his final composition, Armide was his last complete partition plus tard cette même année, il commença sa (non enregistré ici) louant le règne sage et glorieux du We slightly shortened the divertissement in Act II, tragédie en musique and the last work he wrote in

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collaboration with librettist Philippe Quinault. It was an previous winter, coupled with the general atmosphere of Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687) instant and enduring success: a crowd-pleaser at its austerity and religiosity at court in the late 1680s, was La tragédie d’Armide initial production and a perennial favorite of audiences enough to make the king distance himself from his and critics in the eighteenth century. formerly favourite composer and from the Opéra in Au cours des quatre-vingts années qui suivirent sa majeur à un autre, palliant ainsi à la répétitivité si The première, originally intended for the royal court Paris. création en 1685, l’Armide de Lully connut à l’Opéra de problématique du quatrième acte et réduisant du même at Versailles but repeatedly postponed because both Yet Louis XIV had selected the subject for the Paris une histoire interprétative riche et variée. Tout en coup le long récitatif qui aurait autrement conclu l’acte Lully and the king were ill, took place in Paris on 15th libretto: “Quinault took three opera stories for the tenant Lully et son librettiste Quinault en très haute IV et ouvert l’acte V. February 1686, at Lully’s public theatre in the Palais- coming winter to the king at Madame de estime, les responsables des productions n’hésitèrent Nous avons quelque peu abrégé le divertissement de Royal. A week later Henry Baud de Sainte-Frique Montespan’s…. The king found all three to his liking pas à modifier la partition et le livret de manière à l’acte II, scène 4, en supprimant l’un des airs de la described the event evocatively in a letter to a Tuscan and chose that of Armide.” While most of Quinault’s s’assurer du succès de l’ouvrage. Les interprètes Bergère. Au XVIIIè siècle, Rebel et Francoeur firent court official in Florence: “There was such a large tragédies en musique have mythological plots, taken d’aujourd’hui sont énormément redevables à des eux aussi quelques ajustements à cette scène, mais de crowd that no more could enter at all, and more than 100 mainly from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the last three musicologues qui, comme Lois Rosow dans le cas manière un peu différente et dans le cadre d’autres people were on the stage at a louis each. All the loges (Amadis, Roland, Armide) present tales of medieval d’Armide, ont élaboré des éditions et effectué des modifications stylistiques. Dans les danses de divers held ten people each. You know that seven is enough to chivalry, taken from the romances of Montalvo, Ariosto, recherches reconstituant minutieusement à notre divertissements et entractes, nous avons éliminé fill them and is uncomfortably crowded. The and Tasso. On the one hand, this shift toward tales of the intention les circonstances originales de la création plusieurs reprises, et notamment dans les Sarabandes du amphitheatre and the parterre and the gallery were so Crusades is understandable: after the queen’s death in d’œuvres données et nous fournissant des informations premier acte, qui dans le contexte de la chorégraphie jumbled that the size of the crowd there could not be 1683, the king had grown increasingly preoccupied by détaillées sur la manière dont elles furent traitées par la d’une production scénique auraient sûrement été taken in without astonishment. They claim that Lully religion and morality. On the other, the stories told in suite au cours de leur histoire. fascinantes et auraient donné une imposante symétrie à received 10,000 francs that day.” The Mercure galant these operas represent archetypes familiar from classical Pour notre enregistrement, nous nous sommes la scène mais qui semblent trop répétitives pour un reported that “the words were found very worthy of mythology: the enchantress Armide and warrior Renaud parfois éloignés de la version originale de 1686 enregistrement. their author, which goes without saying since he excels could just as well be Circe and Ulysses. In any case, d’Armide. Ces changements sont le reflet de Le dernier changement, qui est aussi le plus in works of this nature. Everyone was charmed by the Torquato Tasso’s epic Gerusalemme liberata, the préoccupations pratiques, des différences inhérentes à important, est de faire suivre directement l’Ouverture orchestra and the music. The scenery seemed grand and source for the story of Armida and Rinaldo, was well l’écoute d’un enregistrement par opposition au fait par l’action de l’acte I en supprimant le Prologue, un new, and especially the theatre that breaks apart. It is the known and popular—it had been translated into French d’assister à une représentation, et des problèmes de panégyrique de Louis XIV faisant intervenir les invention of Monsieur Bérain, designer of the Cabinet several times between 1595 and 1671—and the Armida dramaturgie traités au cours de l’histoire interprétative personnages allégoriques de la Sagesse et de la Gloire. du Roy. There were loud exclamations over the beauty tale in particular had been dramatized in important de l’ouvrage au XVIIIè siècle. Historiquement, le Prologue ne fut abandonné qu’en of all of the parts that make up the fifth act of this French court ballets earlier in the century. Les premiers changements historiques importants se 1761, époque à laquelle les sensibilités artistiques et opera.” (The “theatre that breaks apart”, an image In fact, the story lent itself well to political allegory. focalisèrent sur de la pertinence très débattue de l’acte politiques avaient considérablement évolué. Toutefois, commemorated in the frontispiece of the published The opera begins with an allegorical prologue (not on IV et notamment de sa scène 4, durant laquelle le il semble que le public se soit enthousiasmé pour ce libretto, was Armide’s magical palace, destroyed by this recording), praising the wise and glorious rule of the chevalier Ubalde est tenté par Mélisse et qui fait écho récit dramatique, et en 1777, Gluck produisit sa propre demons at her command at the end of the opera.) When king and referring obliquely to a “monster” that he had aux scènes précédentes où Lucinde s’efforce de séduire Armide, sans prologue mais suivant presque le livret de Lully published the score later that year, he began his vanquished. The political event uppermost in the minds le Chevalier danois. Lecerf de la Viéville décréta en Quinault à la lettre, et elle connut un riche parcours letter of dedication to the king by alluding to the of Parisians at the beginning of 1686 was the revocation 1705 qu’il fallait couper cette scène, et elle fut éliminée interprétatif au XIXè siècle, tout comme la version de scheduling difficulties at Versailles: “Of all the of the Edict of Nantes on 22nd October 1685, the climax des productions dès 1697. Rebel et Francoeur, Lully au XVIIIè. L’histoire et notre propre version nous tragedies that I have set to music, here is the one with of years of persecution of the Huguenots. Thus, the inspecteurs généraux de l’Opéra au milieu du XVIIIè rappellent ainsi que chaque génération d’interprètes which the public has seemed the most satisfied. It is a “monster” was Protestantism, demonized here as in all siècle, effectuèrent une coupure à partir d’un passage de lègue un peu de son expérience à la suivante, et que show that draws crowds, and none seen before now has officially approved literature. Metaphorically this theme la scène 3, même s’ils rallongèrent le précédent l’interprétation de chefs-d’œuvre comme Armide est received more applause. Nevertheless, of all my works may be read in the tragedy itself, the virtuous European divertissement. Notre choix assez simple a été de relier constamment vivace et formatrice. it is the one I deem the least happy since it has not yet Crusader Renaud symbolizing Catholic France and the le troisième air de la scène 3 à l’entracte précédant l’acte had the advantage of appearing before Your seductive Middle Eastern princess-magician Armide V en passant directement d’un rythme ternaire en ut Ryan Brown Majesty….” Louis apparently never saw Armide. It symbolizing Protestant heresy. seems that Lully’s involvement in a sex scandal the Yet Renaud is not the principal protagonist of the

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Ryan Brown opera. Against the backdrop of conventional royal characters and the chorus representing their voices. allegory, the heroine Armide wages a fierce internal Twice the libretto calls for elaborate stage machinery: in Ryan Brown is the founder, conductor and artistic director of Opera Lafayette. His vivid battle between love and vengeance, and it is her story the entr’acte connecting Acts II and III, during which interpretations of baroque and classical opera, and the French repertoire in particular, have that dominates the plot. Discussing the brilliant singing- demons disguised as gentle zephyrs carry Armide and received the highest praise from critics in the United States and abroad. In addition to his actress Marie (“Marthe”) Le Rochois, who created the the sleeping Renaud away from the pastoral riverbank; work with Opera Lafayette he has conducted Italian, German, and English repertoire with rôle, the 18th-century biographer Evrard Titon du Tillet and at the end of the opera, where Armide’s magical other companies, leading performances of Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia and Cimarosa’s wrote, “What rapture to see her in the fifth scene of the palace crumbles to the ground. Throughout the opera the Il matrimonio segreto with the University of Maryland’s Opera Studio, Mozart’s Die second act …, dagger in hand, ready to pierce the breast orchestra paints character and mood—as in the Entführung aus dem Serail with the Sonoma Opera, Handel’s Acis and Galatea with the of Renaud, asleep on a bed of greenery! Fury animated murmuring flutes and muted strings of Renaud’s Photo: Naomi Reddert Redwoods Festival, and assisting with productions of Bizet’s Carmen and Verdi’s Il her at the sight of him, love came and seized her heart; enchanted sleep, the wide leaps and jagged rhythms of trovatore with the Baltimore Opera while studying conducting with the eminent Gustav the one and the other affected her in turn. Pity and Armide’s entrance with dagger in hand, the growling Meier at the Peabody Institute. His educational endeavours with Opera Lafayette have tenderness followed, and love was the winner.” Jean- repetitive bass line of Hatred’s ceremony, and the included creating seminars on French opera for the Smithsonian Institution and giving Laurent Lecerf de la Viéville, writing in 1705 about a hypnotic, seductive continuous variations over an lectures on style and opera for other organizations, as well as preparing editions of revival that had taken place around a decade after the endlessly cycling harmonic pattern in the extended eighteenth-century operas for performance and publication. He has also been a panelist for première, remarked, “When I picture la Rochois, that dance (a passacaille) in Act V. the National Endowment for the Arts. Ryan Brown was raised in a musical family in California, and attended little woman who was no longer young, capped with The edition is based mainly on the score printed Oberlin College, the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, and the Juilliard School, where his principal violin black hair, and armed with a black cane with a ribbon under Lully’s direction in 1686, with additional studies were with Dorothy Delay. Before turning his attention to conducting, he toured the United States, Europe, the colour of fire, moving about that great stage, which information drawn from two manuscript violin parts and Japan as a chamber musician and with the Four Nations Ensemble, made six critically acclaimed recordings of she filled almost by herself, and drawing from her chest (the only parts to survive from the original orchestral baroque and classical music for the London-based Gaudeamus label. from time to time marvellous bursts of song, I assure materials), the libretto printed for the première, and a you that I shiver again.” In the end, neither Armide’s group of vocal and instrumental parts that survive from beauty and power nor the army of demons at her early 18th-century productions of Armide in Paris. For command (who make several appearances disguised as this performance editorial percussion has been added. gentle pastoral figures) can save her from herself. According to Lecerf, after the final curtain, “the Lois Rosow spectator, filled with passion that has grown until this final moment … returns home profoundly moved in Portions of this commentary first appeared in J.-B. spite of himself, dreaming, chagrined at Armide’s Lully, Oeuvres complètes, ser. 3, vol. 14 (Hildesheim, unhappiness.” 2003); reproduced by permission of the Association Lully’s music is characterized by the artful Lully and Georg Olms Verlag. arrangement of linked and nested segments, much like the plantings in a formal French garden. Miniature songs and short instrumental introductions mingle with Synopsis passages of melodious, expressive recitative to form large-scale patterned scene structures. The five acts Act I: Armide, a warrior princess and sorceress, is were performed without break, with short musical praised by her confidantes Phénice and Sidonie for her entr’actes accompanying spectacular changes of victory over the Crusaders whom she has taken captive. scenery. The ballet episodes in each act, whether civic However, Armide expresses her anger and frustration ceremony, scene of pastoral enchantment, or the because she has not been able to prevail over Renaud, horrifying ritual of Hatred and her followers, brought the most valiant of the Christian knights. Armide’s troupes of performers together in communal action, the uncle, Hidraot, urges his niece to choose a husband, but dancers representing the bodies of the collective she declares that were she to yield to love she would

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only consider someone who could conquer Renaud. from her love for Renaud. Hate and her followers Opera Lafayette Amidst the celebration of Armide’s victory, Aronte, perform a powerful invocation, but Armide cannot give who was guarding the prisoners, enters mortally up Renaud, and she sends Hate away. Hate curses Opera Lafayette is an American period instrument ensemble dedicated to performances of seventeenth- and wounded, announcing the prisoners’ rescue by Renaud. Armide, condemning her to the punishment of endless eighteenth-century operas, particularly the French repertoire. Founded in 1995 by Artistic Director Ryan Brown, Armide and Hidroat swear that such an enemy will not love. Opera Lafayette has won critical acclaim and a loyal following for its concert and staged opera productions with escape their vengeance. well-known American and international artists. Its collaborations with The New York Baroque Dance Company, the Act IV: Two of Renaud’s companions, Ubalde and the leading baroque dance group in this country, have produced world première musical and dance performances. Opera Act II: Artémidore, one of the knights rescued by Danish Knight, are searching for their hero to rescue Lafayette records for Naxos. Its début recording of the 1774 Paris version of Gluck’s Orphée et Euridice was Renaud, praises his rescuer and asks him to flee the him from Armide. They manage to resist the released internationally in 2005, followed by Sacchini’s Oedipe à Colone in 2006 and Rameau Opera Arias for place where Armide rules. Renaud assures Artémidore temptations and dangerous delights set in their path by Haute-Contre with tenor Jean-Paul Fouchécourt in 2007. With the 2007-2008 season’s performances and recording that his heart is safe from Armide’s enchantment. Armide. of Zélindor, Opera Lafayette launched a three-year project to present modern American premières of three Hidraot and Armide conjure up demons to put Renaud eighteenth-century French operas in Washington, D.C. and in New York City at the Rose Theater, home of Jazz at to sleep. The hero admires his surroundings and sits Act V: Armide and Renaud declare their passion but Lincoln Center, and also to make première recordings of these operas. Opera Lafayette was founded by Ryan Brown down to rest. The demons, in the shape of nymphs and Armide is haunted by a dark foreboding, and wishes to in 1995 as The Violins of Lafayette, producing a series of chamber concerts in the Salon Doré, an eighteenth- shepherds, weave their spells over Renaud. Armide consult the Underworld. She retires and leaves the century drawing room in the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The ensemble quickly established a enters, intending to kill Renaud as he sleeps. Instead, Pleasures and a troop of Fortunate Lovers to amuse reputation for excellence, giving particular attention to opera in both semi-staged and concert performances. The she is overcome by love for him, and decides that her Renaud. In her absence, Ubalde and the Danish Knight newly-named Opera Lafayette was presented on the 2001-2002 inaugural season of the Clarice Smith Performing triumph, thanks to her spells, would be to bring Renaud discover Renaud and break Armide’s spell. She returns Arts Center at the University of Maryland, and has gone on to offer works by Gluck, Handel, Rameau, Mozart, into her power and have him love her. She asks the in time to confront Renaud as he leaves, imploring him Charpentier and Lully. demons to transform themselves into zephyrs to carry to take her with him as a captive if he will not remain as her and Renaud far away. her lover. For Renaud, Duty and Glory demand that he Orchestra Quintes Bassoons Joan McFarland leave her, but he pities her fate. Armide, left alone, Ryan Brown, Conductor Gesa Kordes, (viola), Marilyn Boenau, Rebecca Kellerman Act III: Armide deplores the conquest of her heart by laments her love and the horror of her torment, and and Artistic Director Risa Browder (viola) Anna Marsh Petretta Renaud. Phénice and Sidonie urge Armide to abandon declares that the hope of vengence is all that remains to herself to love, but Armide is troubled because, while her. Armide then bids the demons destroy her enchanted Violins Violoncello Percussion Alto Loretta O’ Sullivan* Michelle Humphreys Marta Kirilloff Barber she is in love with him, he is bound to her only by her palace, hoping to bury forever her cursed love. Claire Jolivet, Concertmaster, Roger Isaacs spells. Armide invokes the spirit of Hate to rescue her petite choeur soli Viol Theorbos Tara McCredie Elizabeth Field, John Moran* Daniel Swenberg*, Tracy Cowart petite choeur soli William Simms* Alexandra Eddy, Basses de Violon Tenor Nina Falk, Alice Robbins, Harpsichord James Biggs Garry Clarke NJ Snider**, Andrew Appel* Gary Glick Jay Elfenbein Adam Hall Haute Contres *Continuo Eric Sampson June Huang (violin), Flutes **Orchestra Personnel Timothy Haig (violin) Colin St. Martin, Manager Bass Katherine Roth Andrew Adelsberger Tailles Chorus Steven Combs Leslie Nero (viola), Oboes Darren Perry C. Ann Loud (viola) Washington McClain Soprano Jonathan Woody (and recorder) Rachel Barham Margaret Owens Adria McCulloch Owen Watkins (and recorder) 8.660209-10 813 8.660209-10 660209-10 bk Lully 8/15/08 2:18 PM Page 12

Tony Boutté Stephanie Houtzeel

Tony Boutté, tenor, enjoys a growing career as a performer of music from the Baroque to the Nominated one of the best up-and-coming singers of 2003 by Opernwelt magazine for her present. He has appeared with three distinguished European conductors, William Christie of Les performance of the Composer in Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, the mezzo-soprano Stephanie Arts Florissants, Christophe Rousset of Les Talens Lyriques and Hervé Niquet of Concert Houtzeel has appeared at the Zurich, Antwerp, Graz and St. Gallen opera houses. Her operatic Spirituel. He has sung with many of North America’s leading ensembles, including Opera career has taken her to Graz and Linz in Austria, as well as to Germany, where she has sung a Lafayette, New York Collegium, Washington Bach Consort, Orchestra of St. Luke’s and number of major rôles. Also active in baroque repertoire, she has sung the title- rôle in Handel’s Tafelmusik. Boutté has also performed at the Salzburg Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Santa Fe Ariodante and Galatea in Acis and Galatea with the Opera da Camera Linz. She has toured with Opera, Bard Festival, Skylight Opera Theater, Schleswig-Holstein Festival and Tage Alte Muzik the Collegium Vocale Gent, singing the alto solos in cantatas and Masses of Bach, under Philippe Regensberg. He has created rôles in six world premières, including Michael Gordon’s Chaos at Herreweghe, and appeared regularly with the Four Nations Ensemble of New York. Her first The Kitchen (New York City). Tony Boutté has recorded Bach’s St John Passion with the recording of Handel cantatas, with the Bouts Baroque Ensemble, received high praise from Smithsonian Chamber Orchestra, Carbon Copy Building with Bang on a Can and has sung in documentaries for the several publications. Since her 1997 recital début at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, she has appeared in concert BBC and PBS. Other recordings include one with Julianne Baird of music from the Jane Austen Songbook, and series including the New York Festival of Song, Chamber Series of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Styriarte music by Purcell with Brandywine Baroque. His appearances include a Canadian tour with Les Violons du Roy, Graz, International Bruckner Festival and Great Performers Series of Lincoln Center. She has appeared as a concert Handel’s Acis and Galatea in Ithaca, and rôles in Lully’s Acis et Galatée and Sacchini’s Oedipe à Colone with soloist under conductors including Dennis Russell Davies, Philippe Jordan, Pinchas Steinberg, Eric Ericsson and Opera Lafayette. Claus Peter Flor. In January 2004 she made her début at the Vienna Musikverein as soloist in Mahler’s Third Symphony. Adria McCulloch

Acclaimed by the press, the Canadian soprano Adria McCulloch holds a Masters degree from the Robert Getchell Maryland Opera Studio, where she performed the rôles of Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni and the title-rôle in Gluck’s Armide. She has collaborated extensively with Opera Lafayette since 2006. The tenor Robert Getchell began singing at the University of Massachusetts, where he studied French and Spanish literature. In France he studied French baroque music at the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles and continued his studies with Margreet Honig at the Amsterdam

Photo: Phil Crozier Conservatory, specialising in early music interpretation with Howard Crook. In Europe Robert Getchell has performed frequently with many ensembles, including Les Talens Lyriques, Musica Antiqua Köln, Le Parlement de Musique, Nederlandse Bachvereniging, l’Ensemble Pierre Robert, Al Ayre Español, and the Netherlands Chamber Choir, and is a frequent soloist in the Theatre and Opera of Rouen. On the operatic stage he has appeared in various baroque operas, including Tara McCredie Lully’s Roland with René Jacobs, Lully’s Persée, A.C. Destouche’s Semiramis and Purcell’s The Fairy Queen with Christophe Rousset. Robert Getchell has been invited to sing in various festivals in Europe such Mezzo-soprano Tara McCredie holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Catholic University of as the festivals of Versailles, Ambronay, Fribourg, Beaune and Utrecht. He has recorded numerous CDs with works America, where she performed the rôles of Annina in La traviata, Mrs Nolan in The Medium and from composers from Charpentier and Mozart to Schubert, Mendelssohn, Poulenc and more recently Sacchini with Mother in Amahl and the Night Visitors. She has also sung Charlotte in Werther and La Haine in Opera Lafayette. Gluck’s Armide with the Maryland Opera Studio. She is a frequent soloist in the Washington, DC area. Photo: Matt Mendelsohn

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François Loup Ann Monoyios

The bass François Loup, singer, actor and stage director, made his international début at the 1974 The soprano Ann Monoyios concertizes extensively throughout Europe and North Spoleto Festival at the invitation of Gian Carlo Menotti. His reputation rapidly grew and he first America in a wide variety of repertory including opera, oratorio, chamber music and performed in Washington, DC in 1981. He has performed with the Metropolitan Opera of New recitals. In concert engagements she has collaborated with the leading Baroque specialists York since 1992, where he has given more than a hundred performances in major rôles, including of the world including Gustav Leonhardt, Frans Brüggen, Christopher Hogwood, John Bartolo (Mozart and Rossini), Dulcamara in L’elisir d’amore, Sulpice in The Daughter of the Eliot Gardiner, Philippe Herreweghe, Reinhard Goebel and Nicholas McGegan. She has Regiment, the Sacristan in Tosca, Benoît and Alcindoro in La Bohème, Frank in Die Fledermaus been featured soloist on tours in Europe and the Far East with Tafelmusik Orchestra and and the Majordomo in Strauss’s Capriccio. He has performed with the Florentine Opera, New can be heard as soprano soloist on their recordings of Haydn sacred works for Sony Israeli Opera, Dallas Opera, Canadian Opera, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Lyric Vivarte, from which the recording of The Creation has been singled out for particularly Opera of Chicago, Opera Company of Philadelphia, Santa Fe Opera, Washington Opera, Opera high praise. She has been guest soloist with many symphony orchestras in North America, among them Montreal, Bastille of Paris, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and in cities all over the world including Lyon, Nantes, Strasbourg, Houston, San Francisco, San Antonio, Edmonton and Calgary, as well as the National Arts Center Orchestra in Rouen, Toulouse, Madrid, Barcelona, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Prague, Glyndebourne, Aix-en-Provence, Ottawa. As a baroque specialist, Ann Monoyios has appeared throughout Europe in numerous productions of Rome, Spoleto and Bologna. He has recorded for Erato, CBS, Philips, Accord and NVC. He is an associate baroque operas. Her most interesting collaborations have been performing Lully’s Atys at the Paris Opéra with professor at the University of Maryland. William Christie and Les Arts Florissants, Handel’s Alcina with Jos van Immerseel in Antwerp and Purcell’s The Fairy Queen conducted by Trevor Pinnock in Lisbon. She can be heard on many record labels, among them Deutsche Grammophon Archiv, Sony Vivarte, EMI, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi and Erato. Her favourite recordings include Bach’s St Matthew Passion with John Eliot Gardiner for Deutsche Grammophon and Monteverdi’s Vespers William Sharp of 1610, also with John Eliot Gardiner.

The baritone William Sharp has earned a reputation as a singer of great versatility and continues to win critical acclaim for his work in concert, recital, opera and recordings. He has appeared throughout the United States with major orchestras and music festivals, including performances Miriam Dubrow with the New York Philharmonic, St. Louis Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, National Symphony, New Jersey Symphony and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. He is a frequent participant Miriam Dubrow, soprano, began her vocal training in Philadelphia with Margaret Poyner of the in Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Colorado Music Festival and Curtis Institute and Julianne Baird. She continued her studies on scholarship at the Peabody Marlboro Music Festival. He has made numerous appearances with the Bach Aria Group, Handel Conservatory working with Phyllis Bryn-Julson and Wayne Conner. She has also won several and Haydn Society, and Maryland Handel Festival. A highly respected recording artist, William singing fellowships, including invitations to the Tanglewood Music Center and the Israel Vocal Sharp was nominated for a 1989 Grammy award for Best Classical Vocal Performance for his Arts Institute in Tel Aviv, where she performed a series of Lieder concerts with the renowned recording of works by American composers (New World Records). His recording for Koch of Leonard Bernstein’s pianist/conductor Martin Isepp and under sponsorship by the British Council. Proving herself a Arias and Barcarolles with the New York Festival of Song received a 1990 Grammy award. Other recordings dynamic interpreter of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century music, ranging from ballads to opera include the songs of Marc Blitzstein with The New York Festival of Song (Koch), and the Mass in B minor, with the and oratorio, she has performed throughout Europe, Mexico and Israel as well as across the Bach Choir of Bethlehem (Dorian). William Sharp is the winner of the 1987 Carnegie Hall International American United States. She performs extensively in Washington, DC, and appearances include a featured Music Competition. segment on the Mark Steiner Show on National Public Radio, a recital at the Kennedy Center and the French Embassy and Corcoran Gallery as Thalie in Rameau’s Platée with The Violins of Lafayette.

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François Loup Ann Monoyios

The bass François Loup, singer, actor and stage director, made his international début at the 1974 The soprano Ann Monoyios concertizes extensively throughout Europe and North Spoleto Festival at the invitation of Gian Carlo Menotti. His reputation rapidly grew and he first America in a wide variety of repertory including opera, oratorio, chamber music and performed in Washington, DC in 1981. He has performed with the Metropolitan Opera of New recitals. In concert engagements she has collaborated with the leading Baroque specialists York since 1992, where he has given more than a hundred performances in major rôles, including of the world including Gustav Leonhardt, Frans Brüggen, Christopher Hogwood, John Bartolo (Mozart and Rossini), Dulcamara in L’elisir d’amore, Sulpice in The Daughter of the Eliot Gardiner, Philippe Herreweghe, Reinhard Goebel and Nicholas McGegan. She has Regiment, the Sacristan in Tosca, Benoît and Alcindoro in La Bohème, Frank in Die Fledermaus been featured soloist on tours in Europe and the Far East with Tafelmusik Orchestra and and the Majordomo in Strauss’s Capriccio. He has performed with the Florentine Opera, New can be heard as soprano soloist on their recordings of Haydn sacred works for Sony Israeli Opera, Dallas Opera, Canadian Opera, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Lyric Vivarte, from which the recording of The Creation has been singled out for particularly Opera of Chicago, Opera Company of Philadelphia, Santa Fe Opera, Washington Opera, Opera high praise. She has been guest soloist with many symphony orchestras in North America, among them Montreal, Bastille of Paris, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and in cities all over the world including Lyon, Nantes, Strasbourg, Houston, San Francisco, San Antonio, Edmonton and Calgary, as well as the National Arts Center Orchestra in Rouen, Toulouse, Madrid, Barcelona, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Prague, Glyndebourne, Aix-en-Provence, Ottawa. As a baroque specialist, Ann Monoyios has appeared throughout Europe in numerous productions of Rome, Spoleto and Bologna. He has recorded for Erato, CBS, Philips, Accord and NVC. He is an associate baroque operas. Her most interesting collaborations have been performing Lully’s Atys at the Paris Opéra with professor at the University of Maryland. William Christie and Les Arts Florissants, Handel’s Alcina with Jos van Immerseel in Antwerp and Purcell’s The Fairy Queen conducted by Trevor Pinnock in Lisbon. She can be heard on many record labels, among them Deutsche Grammophon Archiv, Sony Vivarte, EMI, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi and Erato. Her favourite recordings include Bach’s St Matthew Passion with John Eliot Gardiner for Deutsche Grammophon and Monteverdi’s Vespers William Sharp of 1610, also with John Eliot Gardiner.

The baritone William Sharp has earned a reputation as a singer of great versatility and continues to win critical acclaim for his work in concert, recital, opera and recordings. He has appeared throughout the United States with major orchestras and music festivals, including performances Miriam Dubrow with the New York Philharmonic, St. Louis Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, National Symphony, New Jersey Symphony and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. He is a frequent participant Miriam Dubrow, soprano, began her vocal training in Philadelphia with Margaret Poyner of the in Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Colorado Music Festival and Curtis Institute and Julianne Baird. She continued her studies on scholarship at the Peabody Marlboro Music Festival. He has made numerous appearances with the Bach Aria Group, Handel Conservatory working with Phyllis Bryn-Julson and Wayne Conner. She has also won several and Haydn Society, and Maryland Handel Festival. A highly respected recording artist, William singing fellowships, including invitations to the Tanglewood Music Center and the Israel Vocal Sharp was nominated for a 1989 Grammy award for Best Classical Vocal Performance for his Arts Institute in Tel Aviv, where she performed a series of Lieder concerts with the renowned recording of works by American composers (New World Records). His recording for Koch of Leonard Bernstein’s pianist/conductor Martin Isepp and under sponsorship by the British Council. Proving herself a Arias and Barcarolles with the New York Festival of Song received a 1990 Grammy award. Other recordings dynamic interpreter of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century music, ranging from ballads to opera include the songs of Marc Blitzstein with The New York Festival of Song (Koch), and the Mass in B minor, with the and oratorio, she has performed throughout Europe, Mexico and Israel as well as across the Bach Choir of Bethlehem (Dorian). William Sharp is the winner of the 1987 Carnegie Hall International American United States. She performs extensively in Washington, DC, and appearances include a featured Music Competition. segment on the Mark Steiner Show on National Public Radio, a recital at the Kennedy Center and the French Embassy and Corcoran Gallery as Thalie in Rameau’s Platée with The Violins of Lafayette.

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Tony Boutté Stephanie Houtzeel

Tony Boutté, tenor, enjoys a growing career as a performer of music from the Baroque to the Nominated one of the best up-and-coming singers of 2003 by Opernwelt magazine for her present. He has appeared with three distinguished European conductors, William Christie of Les performance of the Composer in Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, the mezzo-soprano Stephanie Arts Florissants, Christophe Rousset of Les Talens Lyriques and Hervé Niquet of Concert Houtzeel has appeared at the Zurich, Antwerp, Graz and St. Gallen opera houses. Her operatic Spirituel. He has sung with many of North America’s leading ensembles, including Opera career has taken her to Graz and Linz in Austria, as well as to Germany, where she has sung a Lafayette, New York Collegium, Washington Bach Consort, Orchestra of St. Luke’s and number of major rôles. Also active in baroque repertoire, she has sung the title- rôle in Handel’s Tafelmusik. Boutté has also performed at the Salzburg Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Santa Fe Ariodante and Galatea in Acis and Galatea with the Opera da Camera Linz. She has toured with Opera, Bard Festival, Skylight Opera Theater, Schleswig-Holstein Festival and Tage Alte Muzik the Collegium Vocale Gent, singing the alto solos in cantatas and Masses of Bach, under Philippe Regensberg. He has created rôles in six world premières, including Michael Gordon’s Chaos at Herreweghe, and appeared regularly with the Four Nations Ensemble of New York. Her first The Kitchen (New York City). Tony Boutté has recorded Bach’s St John Passion with the recording of Handel cantatas, with the Bouts Baroque Ensemble, received high praise from Smithsonian Chamber Orchestra, Carbon Copy Building with Bang on a Can and has sung in documentaries for the several publications. Since her 1997 recital début at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, she has appeared in concert BBC and PBS. Other recordings include one with Julianne Baird of music from the Jane Austen Songbook, and series including the New York Festival of Song, Chamber Series of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Styriarte music by Purcell with Brandywine Baroque. His appearances include a Canadian tour with Les Violons du Roy, Graz, International Bruckner Festival and Great Performers Series of Lincoln Center. She has appeared as a concert Handel’s Acis and Galatea in Ithaca, and rôles in Lully’s Acis et Galatée and Sacchini’s Oedipe à Colone with soloist under conductors including Dennis Russell Davies, Philippe Jordan, Pinchas Steinberg, Eric Ericsson and Opera Lafayette. Claus Peter Flor. In January 2004 she made her début at the Vienna Musikverein as soloist in Mahler’s Third Symphony. Adria McCulloch

Acclaimed by the press, the Canadian soprano Adria McCulloch holds a Masters degree from the Robert Getchell Maryland Opera Studio, where she performed the rôles of Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni and the title-rôle in Gluck’s Armide. She has collaborated extensively with Opera Lafayette since 2006. The tenor Robert Getchell began singing at the University of Massachusetts, where he studied French and Spanish literature. In France he studied French baroque music at the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles and continued his studies with Margreet Honig at the Amsterdam

Photo: Phil Crozier Conservatory, specialising in early music interpretation with Howard Crook. In Europe Robert Getchell has performed frequently with many ensembles, including Les Talens Lyriques, Musica Antiqua Köln, Le Parlement de Musique, Nederlandse Bachvereniging, l’Ensemble Pierre Robert, Al Ayre Español, and the Netherlands Chamber Choir, and is a frequent soloist in the Theatre and Opera of Rouen. On the operatic stage he has appeared in various baroque operas, including Tara McCredie Lully’s Roland with René Jacobs, Lully’s Persée, A.C. Destouche’s Semiramis and Purcell’s The Fairy Queen with Christophe Rousset. Robert Getchell has been invited to sing in various festivals in Europe such Mezzo-soprano Tara McCredie holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Catholic University of as the festivals of Versailles, Ambronay, Fribourg, Beaune and Utrecht. He has recorded numerous CDs with works America, where she performed the rôles of Annina in La traviata, Mrs Nolan in The Medium and from composers from Charpentier and Mozart to Schubert, Mendelssohn, Poulenc and more recently Sacchini with Mother in Amahl and the Night Visitors. She has also sung Charlotte in Werther and La Haine in Opera Lafayette. Gluck’s Armide with the Maryland Opera Studio. She is a frequent soloist in the Washington, DC area. Photo: Matt Mendelsohn

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only consider someone who could conquer Renaud. from her love for Renaud. Hate and her followers Opera Lafayette Amidst the celebration of Armide’s victory, Aronte, perform a powerful invocation, but Armide cannot give who was guarding the prisoners, enters mortally up Renaud, and she sends Hate away. Hate curses Opera Lafayette is an American period instrument ensemble dedicated to performances of seventeenth- and wounded, announcing the prisoners’ rescue by Renaud. Armide, condemning her to the punishment of endless eighteenth-century operas, particularly the French repertoire. Founded in 1995 by Artistic Director Ryan Brown, Armide and Hidroat swear that such an enemy will not love. Opera Lafayette has won critical acclaim and a loyal following for its concert and staged opera productions with escape their vengeance. well-known American and international artists. Its collaborations with The New York Baroque Dance Company, the Act IV: Two of Renaud’s companions, Ubalde and the leading baroque dance group in this country, have produced world première musical and dance performances. Opera Act II: Artémidore, one of the knights rescued by Danish Knight, are searching for their hero to rescue Lafayette records for Naxos. Its début recording of the 1774 Paris version of Gluck’s Orphée et Euridice was Renaud, praises his rescuer and asks him to flee the him from Armide. They manage to resist the released internationally in 2005, followed by Sacchini’s Oedipe à Colone in 2006 and Rameau Opera Arias for place where Armide rules. Renaud assures Artémidore temptations and dangerous delights set in their path by Haute-Contre with tenor Jean-Paul Fouchécourt in 2007. With the 2007-2008 season’s performances and recording that his heart is safe from Armide’s enchantment. Armide. of Zélindor, Opera Lafayette launched a three-year project to present modern American premières of three Hidraot and Armide conjure up demons to put Renaud eighteenth-century French operas in Washington, D.C. and in New York City at the Rose Theater, home of Jazz at to sleep. The hero admires his surroundings and sits Act V: Armide and Renaud declare their passion but Lincoln Center, and also to make première recordings of these operas. Opera Lafayette was founded by Ryan Brown down to rest. The demons, in the shape of nymphs and Armide is haunted by a dark foreboding, and wishes to in 1995 as The Violins of Lafayette, producing a series of chamber concerts in the Salon Doré, an eighteenth- shepherds, weave their spells over Renaud. Armide consult the Underworld. She retires and leaves the century drawing room in the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The ensemble quickly established a enters, intending to kill Renaud as he sleeps. Instead, Pleasures and a troop of Fortunate Lovers to amuse reputation for excellence, giving particular attention to opera in both semi-staged and concert performances. The she is overcome by love for him, and decides that her Renaud. In her absence, Ubalde and the Danish Knight newly-named Opera Lafayette was presented on the 2001-2002 inaugural season of the Clarice Smith Performing triumph, thanks to her spells, would be to bring Renaud discover Renaud and break Armide’s spell. She returns Arts Center at the University of Maryland, and has gone on to offer works by Gluck, Handel, Rameau, Mozart, into her power and have him love her. She asks the in time to confront Renaud as he leaves, imploring him Charpentier and Lully. demons to transform themselves into zephyrs to carry to take her with him as a captive if he will not remain as her and Renaud far away. her lover. For Renaud, Duty and Glory demand that he Orchestra Quintes Bassoons Joan McFarland leave her, but he pities her fate. Armide, left alone, Ryan Brown, Conductor Gesa Kordes, (viola), Marilyn Boenau, Rebecca Kellerman Act III: Armide deplores the conquest of her heart by laments her love and the horror of her torment, and and Artistic Director Risa Browder (viola) Anna Marsh Petretta Renaud. Phénice and Sidonie urge Armide to abandon declares that the hope of vengence is all that remains to herself to love, but Armide is troubled because, while her. Armide then bids the demons destroy her enchanted Violins Violoncello Percussion Alto Loretta O’ Sullivan* Michelle Humphreys Marta Kirilloff Barber she is in love with him, he is bound to her only by her palace, hoping to bury forever her cursed love. Claire Jolivet, Concertmaster, Roger Isaacs spells. Armide invokes the spirit of Hate to rescue her petite choeur soli Viol Theorbos Tara McCredie Elizabeth Field, John Moran* Daniel Swenberg*, Tracy Cowart petite choeur soli William Simms* Alexandra Eddy, Basses de Violon Tenor Nina Falk, Alice Robbins, Harpsichord James Biggs Garry Clarke NJ Snider**, Andrew Appel* Gary Glick Jay Elfenbein Adam Hall Haute Contres *Continuo Eric Sampson June Huang (violin), Flutes **Orchestra Personnel Timothy Haig (violin) Colin St. Martin, Manager Bass Katherine Roth Andrew Adelsberger Tailles Chorus Steven Combs Leslie Nero (viola), Oboes Darren Perry C. Ann Loud (viola) Washington McClain Soprano Jonathan Woody (and recorder) Rachel Barham Margaret Owens Adria McCulloch Owen Watkins (and recorder) 8.660209-10 813 8.660209-10 660209-10 bk Lully 8/15/08 2:18 PM Page 14

Ryan Brown opera. Against the backdrop of conventional royal characters and the chorus representing their voices. allegory, the heroine Armide wages a fierce internal Twice the libretto calls for elaborate stage machinery: in Ryan Brown is the founder, conductor and artistic director of Opera Lafayette. His vivid battle between love and vengeance, and it is her story the entr’acte connecting Acts II and III, during which interpretations of baroque and classical opera, and the French repertoire in particular, have that dominates the plot. Discussing the brilliant singing- demons disguised as gentle zephyrs carry Armide and received the highest praise from critics in the United States and abroad. In addition to his actress Marie (“Marthe”) Le Rochois, who created the the sleeping Renaud away from the pastoral riverbank; work with Opera Lafayette he has conducted Italian, German, and English repertoire with rôle, the 18th-century biographer Evrard Titon du Tillet and at the end of the opera, where Armide’s magical other companies, leading performances of Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia and Cimarosa’s wrote, “What rapture to see her in the fifth scene of the palace crumbles to the ground. Throughout the opera the Il matrimonio segreto with the University of Maryland’s Opera Studio, Mozart’s Die second act …, dagger in hand, ready to pierce the breast orchestra paints character and mood—as in the Entführung aus dem Serail with the Sonoma Opera, Handel’s Acis and Galatea with the of Renaud, asleep on a bed of greenery! Fury animated murmuring flutes and muted strings of Renaud’s Photo: Naomi Reddert Redwoods Festival, and assisting with productions of Bizet’s Carmen and Verdi’s Il her at the sight of him, love came and seized her heart; enchanted sleep, the wide leaps and jagged rhythms of trovatore with the Baltimore Opera while studying conducting with the eminent Gustav the one and the other affected her in turn. Pity and Armide’s entrance with dagger in hand, the growling Meier at the Peabody Institute. His educational endeavours with Opera Lafayette have tenderness followed, and love was the winner.” Jean- repetitive bass line of Hatred’s ceremony, and the included creating seminars on French opera for the Smithsonian Institution and giving Laurent Lecerf de la Viéville, writing in 1705 about a hypnotic, seductive continuous variations over an lectures on style and opera for other organizations, as well as preparing editions of revival that had taken place around a decade after the endlessly cycling harmonic pattern in the extended eighteenth-century operas for performance and publication. He has also been a panelist for première, remarked, “When I picture la Rochois, that dance (a passacaille) in Act V. the National Endowment for the Arts. Ryan Brown was raised in a musical family in California, and attended little woman who was no longer young, capped with The edition is based mainly on the score printed Oberlin College, the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, and the Juilliard School, where his principal violin black hair, and armed with a black cane with a ribbon under Lully’s direction in 1686, with additional studies were with Dorothy Delay. Before turning his attention to conducting, he toured the United States, Europe, the colour of fire, moving about that great stage, which information drawn from two manuscript violin parts and Japan as a chamber musician and with the Four Nations Ensemble, made six critically acclaimed recordings of she filled almost by herself, and drawing from her chest (the only parts to survive from the original orchestral baroque and classical music for the London-based Gaudeamus label. from time to time marvellous bursts of song, I assure materials), the libretto printed for the première, and a you that I shiver again.” In the end, neither Armide’s group of vocal and instrumental parts that survive from beauty and power nor the army of demons at her early 18th-century productions of Armide in Paris. For command (who make several appearances disguised as this performance editorial percussion has been added. gentle pastoral figures) can save her from herself. According to Lecerf, after the final curtain, “the Lois Rosow spectator, filled with passion that has grown until this final moment … returns home profoundly moved in Portions of this commentary first appeared in J.-B. spite of himself, dreaming, chagrined at Armide’s Lully, Oeuvres complètes, ser. 3, vol. 14 (Hildesheim, unhappiness.” 2003); reproduced by permission of the Association Lully’s music is characterized by the artful Lully and Georg Olms Verlag. arrangement of linked and nested segments, much like the plantings in a formal French garden. Miniature songs and short instrumental introductions mingle with Synopsis passages of melodious, expressive recitative to form large-scale patterned scene structures. The five acts Act I: Armide, a warrior princess and sorceress, is were performed without break, with short musical praised by her confidantes Phénice and Sidonie for her entr’actes accompanying spectacular changes of victory over the Crusaders whom she has taken captive. scenery. The ballet episodes in each act, whether civic However, Armide expresses her anger and frustration ceremony, scene of pastoral enchantment, or the because she has not been able to prevail over Renaud, horrifying ritual of Hatred and her followers, brought the most valiant of the Christian knights. Armide’s troupes of performers together in communal action, the uncle, Hidraot, urges his niece to choose a husband, but dancers representing the bodies of the collective she declares that were she to yield to love she would

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collaboration with librettist Philippe Quinault. It was an previous winter, coupled with the general atmosphere of Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687) instant and enduring success: a crowd-pleaser at its austerity and religiosity at court in the late 1680s, was La tragédie d’Armide initial production and a perennial favorite of audiences enough to make the king distance himself from his and critics in the eighteenth century. formerly favourite composer and from the Opéra in Au cours des quatre-vingts années qui suivirent sa majeur à un autre, palliant ainsi à la répétitivité si The première, originally intended for the royal court Paris. création en 1685, l’Armide de Lully connut à l’Opéra de problématique du quatrième acte et réduisant du même at Versailles but repeatedly postponed because both Yet Louis XIV had selected the subject for the Paris une histoire interprétative riche et variée. Tout en coup le long récitatif qui aurait autrement conclu l’acte Lully and the king were ill, took place in Paris on 15th libretto: “Quinault took three opera stories for the tenant Lully et son librettiste Quinault en très haute IV et ouvert l’acte V. February 1686, at Lully’s public theatre in the Palais- coming winter to the king at Madame de estime, les responsables des productions n’hésitèrent Nous avons quelque peu abrégé le divertissement de Royal. A week later Henry Baud de Sainte-Frique Montespan’s…. The king found all three to his liking pas à modifier la partition et le livret de manière à l’acte II, scène 4, en supprimant l’un des airs de la described the event evocatively in a letter to a Tuscan and chose that of Armide.” While most of Quinault’s s’assurer du succès de l’ouvrage. Les interprètes Bergère. Au XVIIIè siècle, Rebel et Francoeur firent court official in Florence: “There was such a large tragédies en musique have mythological plots, taken d’aujourd’hui sont énormément redevables à des eux aussi quelques ajustements à cette scène, mais de crowd that no more could enter at all, and more than 100 mainly from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the last three musicologues qui, comme Lois Rosow dans le cas manière un peu différente et dans le cadre d’autres people were on the stage at a louis each. All the loges (Amadis, Roland, Armide) present tales of medieval d’Armide, ont élaboré des éditions et effectué des modifications stylistiques. Dans les danses de divers held ten people each. You know that seven is enough to chivalry, taken from the romances of Montalvo, Ariosto, recherches reconstituant minutieusement à notre divertissements et entractes, nous avons éliminé fill them and is uncomfortably crowded. The and Tasso. On the one hand, this shift toward tales of the intention les circonstances originales de la création plusieurs reprises, et notamment dans les Sarabandes du amphitheatre and the parterre and the gallery were so Crusades is understandable: after the queen’s death in d’œuvres données et nous fournissant des informations premier acte, qui dans le contexte de la chorégraphie jumbled that the size of the crowd there could not be 1683, the king had grown increasingly preoccupied by détaillées sur la manière dont elles furent traitées par la d’une production scénique auraient sûrement été taken in without astonishment. They claim that Lully religion and morality. On the other, the stories told in suite au cours de leur histoire. fascinantes et auraient donné une imposante symétrie à received 10,000 francs that day.” The Mercure galant these operas represent archetypes familiar from classical Pour notre enregistrement, nous nous sommes la scène mais qui semblent trop répétitives pour un reported that “the words were found very worthy of mythology: the enchantress Armide and warrior Renaud parfois éloignés de la version originale de 1686 enregistrement. their author, which goes without saying since he excels could just as well be Circe and Ulysses. In any case, d’Armide. Ces changements sont le reflet de Le dernier changement, qui est aussi le plus in works of this nature. Everyone was charmed by the Torquato Tasso’s epic Gerusalemme liberata, the préoccupations pratiques, des différences inhérentes à important, est de faire suivre directement l’Ouverture orchestra and the music. The scenery seemed grand and source for the story of Armida and Rinaldo, was well l’écoute d’un enregistrement par opposition au fait par l’action de l’acte I en supprimant le Prologue, un new, and especially the theatre that breaks apart. It is the known and popular—it had been translated into French d’assister à une représentation, et des problèmes de panégyrique de Louis XIV faisant intervenir les invention of Monsieur Bérain, designer of the Cabinet several times between 1595 and 1671—and the Armida dramaturgie traités au cours de l’histoire interprétative personnages allégoriques de la Sagesse et de la Gloire. du Roy. There were loud exclamations over the beauty tale in particular had been dramatized in important de l’ouvrage au XVIIIè siècle. Historiquement, le Prologue ne fut abandonné qu’en of all of the parts that make up the fifth act of this French court ballets earlier in the century. Les premiers changements historiques importants se 1761, époque à laquelle les sensibilités artistiques et opera.” (The “theatre that breaks apart”, an image In fact, the story lent itself well to political allegory. focalisèrent sur de la pertinence très débattue de l’acte politiques avaient considérablement évolué. Toutefois, commemorated in the frontispiece of the published The opera begins with an allegorical prologue (not on IV et notamment de sa scène 4, durant laquelle le il semble que le public se soit enthousiasmé pour ce libretto, was Armide’s magical palace, destroyed by this recording), praising the wise and glorious rule of the chevalier Ubalde est tenté par Mélisse et qui fait écho récit dramatique, et en 1777, Gluck produisit sa propre demons at her command at the end of the opera.) When king and referring obliquely to a “monster” that he had aux scènes précédentes où Lucinde s’efforce de séduire Armide, sans prologue mais suivant presque le livret de Lully published the score later that year, he began his vanquished. The political event uppermost in the minds le Chevalier danois. Lecerf de la Viéville décréta en Quinault à la lettre, et elle connut un riche parcours letter of dedication to the king by alluding to the of Parisians at the beginning of 1686 was the revocation 1705 qu’il fallait couper cette scène, et elle fut éliminée interprétatif au XIXè siècle, tout comme la version de scheduling difficulties at Versailles: “Of all the of the Edict of Nantes on 22nd October 1685, the climax des productions dès 1697. Rebel et Francoeur, Lully au XVIIIè. L’histoire et notre propre version nous tragedies that I have set to music, here is the one with of years of persecution of the Huguenots. Thus, the inspecteurs généraux de l’Opéra au milieu du XVIIIè rappellent ainsi que chaque génération d’interprètes which the public has seemed the most satisfied. It is a “monster” was Protestantism, demonized here as in all siècle, effectuèrent une coupure à partir d’un passage de lègue un peu de son expérience à la suivante, et que show that draws crowds, and none seen before now has officially approved literature. Metaphorically this theme la scène 3, même s’ils rallongèrent le précédent l’interprétation de chefs-d’œuvre comme Armide est received more applause. Nevertheless, of all my works may be read in the tragedy itself, the virtuous European divertissement. Notre choix assez simple a été de relier constamment vivace et formatrice. it is the one I deem the least happy since it has not yet Crusader Renaud symbolizing Catholic France and the le troisième air de la scène 3 à l’entracte précédant l’acte had the advantage of appearing before Your seductive Middle Eastern princess-magician Armide V en passant directement d’un rythme ternaire en ut Ryan Brown Majesty….” Louis apparently never saw Armide. It symbolizing Protestant heresy. seems that Lully’s involvement in a sex scandal the Yet Renaud is not the principal protagonist of the

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Armide : Le triomphe suprême de Lully lettre de dédicace au roi en faisant allusion aux Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687) difficultés de la programmation versaillaise : “Sire, de The Tragedy of Armide Armide constitue le point culminant de la longue et toutes les tragédies que j’ay mises en musique voicy fructueuse carrière de Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687), celle dont le Public a tesmoigné estre le plus satisfait: Lully’s Armide had a rich and varied performance scene iv, by deleting one of the Bergère’s airs. In the plus puissant musicien de la cour de Louis XIV et c’est un spectacle où l’on court en foule, et jusqu’icy on history at the Paris Opéra during the eighty years eighteenth century Rebel and Francoeur also made premier compositeur majeur d’opéras français. Bien n’en a point veu qui ait receu plus d’applaudissements; following its début in 1686. Those in charge of the adjustments to this scene, though somewhat differently qu’il ne s’agisse pas de son ultime composition, Armide cependant,c’est de tous les ouvrages que j’ay faits celuy productions, while holding Lully and his librettist and in the context of other stylistic changes. In the fut sa dernière tragédie en musique complète et la que j’estime le moins heureux, puisqu’il n’a pas encore Quinault in the highest esteem and responding with dances of various divertissements and entr’actes we dernière œuvre qu’il écrivit en collaboration avec le eû l’avantage de paroistre devant Vostre Majesté… “ deep enthusiasm to this extraordinary opera, did not have eliminated several repeats, most significantly in librettiste Philippe Quinault. Son succès fut instantané et On pense que Louis XIV ne vit jamais Armide. Il semble hesitate to alter the score and libretto in ways they the Act I Sarabandes which, seen fully choreographed in durable : elle séduisit les foules lors de sa production qu’à cause de l’implication de Lully dans un scandale thought likely to ensure the success of the work. a stage production, would probably prove mesmerizing initiale et demeura l’un des ouvrages préférés du public sexuel l’hiver précédent, ajoutée à l’atmosphère Performers today owe an immense debt of gratitude to and give a grand symmetry to the scene, but seem too et des critiques du XVIIIè siècle. générale d’austérité et de religiosité qui régnait à la cour scholars who, like Lois Rosow in the case of Armide, repetitive for a recording alone. La création, prévue à l’origine pour la cour royale à la fin des années 1680, le roi se soit distancé de celui have created editions and done research which carefully The final but largest change is that we move directly de Versailles mais plusieurs fois reportée parce que le qui avait été son compositeur favori et de l’Opéra de reconstruct for us the original circumstances of a from the Ouverture to the drama of Act I, suppressing compositeur et le roi étaient souffrants, eut lieu à Paris Paris. musical première and provide us with details on the the Prologue, a paean to Louis XIV featuring the le 15 février 1686, au théâtre public de Lully au Palais- Pourtant, c’était Louis XIV en personne qui avait subsequent historical treatments of these works. allegorical characters of Wisdom and Glory. Royal. Une semaine plus tard, Henry Baud de Sainte- choisi le sujet du livret : “Quinault apporta au roi chez For our recording, we have departed from the Historically the Prologue was only dropped in 1761, at Frique décrivit l’événement de manière imagée dans une Madame De Montespan trois livres d’opéra pour cet original 1686 version of Armide in some places. The which time artistic and political sensibilities had lettre adressée à un personnage officiel de la cour hiver… Le roi les trouva tous trois à son gré et choisit changes reflect practical concerns, the differences changed considerably. Still, the public seemed toscane à Florence : “Il y avait une telle foule que plus celui d’Armide.” Alors que la plupart des tragédies en inherent in listening to a recording versus seeing a enthusiastic for this dramatic tale, and in 1777 Gluck personne ne pouvait entrer, et plus de cent spectateurs musique de Quinault ont des sujets mythologiques, production, and dramatic issues addressed in the work’s produced his own Armide without a prologue, which avaient été placés sur la scène au prix d’un louis par tête. principalement puisés dans les Métamorphoses d’Ovide, own eighteenth century performance history. otherwise followed Quinault’s libretto almost exactly Chaque loge contenait dix personnes. Vous savez qu’il les trois dernières (Amadis, Roland, Armide) présentent The first important historical changes in the and went on to have as impressive a performance en suffit de sept pour qu’elles débordent et qu’on se des récits de chevalerie médiévale, tirés des romances performance practice of the work centered around the history in the nineteenth century as Lully’s version did trouve au comble de l’inconfort. L’amphithéâtre, le de Montalvo, de l’Arioste, et du Tasse. D’une part, cette much disputed relevance of Act IV and in particular its in the eighteenth century. Both historically and in our parterre et la galerie étaient un tel enchevêtrement que engouement nouveau pour les croisades est scene iv, during which the knight Ubalde is tempted by own version we are reminded that each generation of l’on ne pouvait le contempler sans en être stupéfié. On compréhensible : à la suite du décès de la reine en 1683, Mélisse, mirroring the previous scenes in which Le performers bequeaths something of its experience to the prétend que Lully reçut 10 000 francs ce jour-là.” Le le roi se préoccupait de plus en plus de religion et de Chevalier danois is tempted by Lucinde. Lecerf de la next, and that interpreting masterpieces such as Armide Mercure galant rapporta que “l’on trouva le texte tout à moralité. D’autre part, les trames de ces opéras Viéville declared in 1705 that “one must cut” this scene, is a living, transformative experience. fait digne de son auteur, ce qui va sans dire puisqu’il constituent des archétypes familiers de la mythologie and it was eliminated from productions as early as 1697. excelle dans des ouvrages de cette nature. Tous furent classique : la magicienne Armide et le guerrier Renaud Rebel and Francoeur, inspecteurs généraux of the Opéra Ryan Brown charmés par l’orchestre et la musique. Le décor semblait auraient tout aussi bien pu être Circé et Ulysse. Quoi in the mid- eighteenth century, cut from a point in scene grandiose et nouveau, notamment le théâtre qui qu’il en soit, l’épopée de Torquato Tasso Gerusalemme iii, though they also lengthened the previous s’effondre. C’est une invention de Monsieur Bérain, le liberata, source de l’histoire d’Armida et Rinaldo, était divertissement. Our choice was simply to go from the Armide: Lully’s ultimate triumph dessinateur du Cabinet du Roy. On s’exclama fort sur la bien connue et très populaire — elle avait plusieurs fois third air of scene iii directly to the entr’acte before Act beauté de toutes les parties qui constituent le cinquième été traduite en français entre 1595 et 1671 — et le récit V, moving smoothly from one triple metre in C major to Armide represents the culmination of the long and acte de cet opéra.” (Le “théâtre qui s’effondre,” image d’Armide notamment avait auparavant été mis en scène another. This addresses some of the larger dramatic fruitful career of Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687), the immortalisée par le frontispice du livret publié, était le dans d’importants ballets de la cour française. concerns of repetitiveness within Act IV and reduces the most powerful musician at the court of Louis XIV and palais magique d’Armide, détruit sur ses ordres par des En fait, cette histoire se prêtait bien à l’allégorie extensive recitative which would otherwise both end the first important composer of French opera. Though démons à la fin de l’opéra.) Lorsque Lully publia la politique. L’opéra débute par un prologue allégorique Act IV and begin Act V. not his final composition, Armide was his last complete partition plus tard cette même année, il commença sa (non enregistré ici) louant le règne sage et glorieux du We slightly shortened the divertissement in Act II, tragédie en musique and the last work he wrote in

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CD 2 66:16 Scene 2 roi et faisant une référence cryptée à un “monstre” malgré lui, songeur, chagriné de l’infortune d’Armide.” 7 “Voici la charmante Retraite” 7:49 terrassé par le monarque. L’événement politique qui La musique de Lully se caractérise par l’habile Act III (Lucinde, Chœur) occupait le plus les Parisiens début 1686 était la arrangement de segments liés et emboîtés rappelant Gavotte révocation de l’Edit de Nantes du 22 octobre 1685, assez les plantations d’un jardin à la française. Des airs 1 Scene 1 2:22 Canaries aboutissement d’années de persécutions contre les miniatures et de brèves introductions instrumentales se Prélude “Allons, qui vous retient encore?” Huguenots. Ainsi, le “monstre” était le protestantisme, mêlent à des passages de récitatif mélodieux et “Ah! si la liberté me doit être ravie” (Ubalde, Le Chevalier danois, Lucinde, Chœur) diabolisé ici comme dans toute la littérature officielle. expressifs pour former le dessin de structures scéniques (Armide) Métaphoriquement, on peut aussi déceler ce thème dans de grande envergure. Les cinq actes étaient exécutés Scene 3 la tragédie proprement dite, le vertueux croisé européen sans interruption, de courts entractes musicaux 2 Scene 2 8:44 8 Prélude 1:37 Renaud symbolisant la France catholique, et la accompagnant de spectaculaires changements de décor. “Que ne peut point votre art?” “Je tourne en vain” séduisante princesse et magicienne moyen-orientale Les épisodes de ballet de chaque acte, qu’il s’agisse (Phénice, Sidonie, Armide) (Le Chevalier danois, Ubalde) Armide représentant l’hérésie protestante. d’une cérémonie, d’une scène d’enchantement pastoral Pourtant, Renaud n’est pas le principal protagoniste ou du terrifiant rituel de la Haine et de son cortège, 3 Scene 3 1:09 9 Entr’acte (Air) 0:29 de l’opéra. Sur la toile de fond de l’allégorie royale réunissaient des troupes d’interprètes dans une action Prélude conventionnelle, l’héroïne Armide est en proie un commune, les danseurs représentant les corps des “Venez, Haine implacable” Act V terrible conflit intérieur, partagée entre l’amour et la personnages collectifs et le chœur leurs voix. A deux (Armide) vengeance, et c’est son histoire qui domine l’intrigue. A reprises, le livret fait appel à une machinerie scénique Scene 1 propos de la merveilleuse actrice-chanteuse Marie recherchée : lors de l’entracte reliant les actes II et III, 4 Scene 4 8:00 0 Ritournelle 7:17 (“Marthe”) Le Rochois, qui créa le rôle, le biographe du durant lequel des démons déguisés en zéphyrs Prélude “Armide, vous m’allez quitter?” XVIIIè siècle Evrard Titon du Tillet écrivit : “Quel inoffensifs emportent Armide et Renaud endormi loin “Je réponds à tes vœux” (Renaud, Armide) ravissement que de la voir dans la cinquième scène du de la rive champêtre, et à la fin de l’opéra, quand le (La Haine, Chœur) deuxième acte …, un poignard à la main, prête à palais enchanté d’Armide s’effondre. Tout au long de Premier Air Scene 2 transpercer la poitrine de Renaud, endormi sur un lit de l’opéra, l’orchestre dépeint les caractères et “Amour, sors pour jamais” ! Passacaille “Les Plaisirs ont choisi pour asile” 9:28 verdure ! La fureur l’animait à sa vue, l’amour vint et l’atmosphère — comme ces murmures de flûtes et ces Second Air (Un Amant fortuné, Chœur) s’empara de son cœur ; l’une et l’autre l’affectèrent tour cordes avec sourdine du sommeil enchanté de Renaud, “Sors du sein d’Armide” “Allez, éloignez-vous de moi” à tour. La pitié et la tendresse s’ensuivirent, et l’amour ces amples intervalles et ces rythmes acérés quand (La Haine, Armide) (Renaud) remporta la victoire.” Jean-Laurent Lecerf de la Armide entre le poignard à la main, ce grondement Viéville, écrivant en 1705 au sujet d’une reprise de répétitif de la ligne de basse de la cérémonie de la 5 Entr’acte (Second Air) 0:37 Scene 3 l’ouvrage ayant eu lieu environ dix ans après la création, Haine, ou ces variations hypnotiques, séduisantes et @ Ritournelle 2:33 remarquait : “Quand je me représente la Rochois, cette incessantes au-dessus d’une boucle harmonique dans la Act IV “Il est seul” petite femme plus toute jeune couronnée de cheveux longue danse (une passacaille) de l’acte V. (Ubalde, Renaud, Le Chevalier danois) noirs et armée d’une canne noire ornée d’un ruban de la L’édition s’appuie principalement sur la partition Scene 1 couleur du feu, parcourant cette grande scène, qu’elle éditée sous la direction de Lully en 1686, avec des 6 Prélude 5:33 Scene 4 remplissait presque à elle toute seule, et exhalant parfois informations additionnelles tirées de deux parties de “Nous ne trouvons par tout que des Gouffres ouverts” # “Renaud? Ciel! O mortelle peine!” 5:51 un chant merveilleux, je vous assure que j’en frissonne violon manuscrites (les seules du matériau orchestral (Le Chevalier danois, Ubalde) (Armide, Renaud, Le Chevalier danois, Ubalde) encore.” En fin de compte, ni la beauté et le pouvoir original qui nous soient parvenues), du livret imprimé Air d’Armide, ni l’armée de démons qu’elle a sous ses pour la création et d’un groupe de parties vocales et Scene 5 ordres (et qui effectuent quelques apparitions déguisés instrumentales provenant de productions parisiennes $ Prélude en innocentes figures pastorales) ne peuvent la sauver d’Armide au XVIIIè siècle. Pour la présente version, “Le perfide Renaud me fuit” 4:44 d’elle-même. Selon Lecerf, après le rideau final, “le nous avons choisi d’ajouter des parties de percussion. (Armide) spectateur, empli d’une passion qui a crû jusqu’à cet Prélude, Symphonie ultime instant… rentre chez lui profondément ému Lois Rosow

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Des portions de ce commentaire sont parues pour la ordonne aux démons de se transformer en zéphyrs et de CD 1 55:33 Act II première fois dans les Œuvres complètes de J.-B. Lully, les emporter au loin. ser. 3, vol. 14 (Hildesheim, 2003) ; reproduites avec 1 Ouverture 2:18 Scene 1 l’aimable autorisation de l’Association Lully et de Acte III : Armide se lamente d’avoir livré son cœur à 9 “Invincible Héros, c’est par votre courage” 4:14 Georg Olms Verlag. Renaud. Phénice et Sidonie exhortent Armide de Act I (Artémidore, Renaud) s’abandonner à l’amour, mais Armide est troublée car si elle aime éperdument Renaud, seule sa magie le lie à Scene 1 Scene 2 Synopsis elle. Armide invoque l’esprit de la Haine pour la 2 Ritournelle 5:53 0 Prélude 3:59 délivrer de son vain amour. Malgré la puissante “Dans un jour de triomphe” “Arrêtons-nous ici; c’est dans ce lieu fatal” Acte I : Armide, princesse guerrière et magicienne, est invocation de la Haine et de sa suite, Armide n’arrive (Phénice, Sidonie, Armide) (Hidraot, Armide) louée par ses confidentes Phénice et Sidonie pour sa pas à renoncer à Renaud, et elle les renvoie. La Haine 3 Prélude 2:13 victoire sur les croisés qu’elle a capturés. Toutefois, maudit Armide, la condamnant à aimer éternellement. “Un songe affreux” Scene 3 Armide exprime sa colère et sa frustration car elle n’est (Armide, Sidonie) ! Prélude 6:03 pas parvenue à triompher de Renaud, le plus vaillant des Acte IV : Ubalde et le Chevalier danois, deux des “Plus j’observe ces lieux, et plus je les admire” chevaliers chrétiens. Hidraot, l’oncle d’Armide, incite compagnons de Renaud, cherchent leur héros pour le Scene 2 (Renaud) sa nièce à se marier, mais elle déclare que si elle devait soustraire à Armide. Ils parviennent à résister aux 4 Prélude 4:40 succomber à l’amour, elle ne pourrait épouser qu’un tentations et aux dangereux délices que la magicienne a “Armide, que le sang qui m’unit avec vous” Scene 4 homme capable de vaincre Renaud. Alors que l’on mis sur leur route. (Hidraot, Armide) @ “Au temps heureux où l’on sçait plaire” 7:48 célèbre la victoire d’Armide, Aronte, qui gardait les (Une Naïade) prisonniers, entre, blessé à mort, et annonce que Renaud Acte V : Armide et Renaud se déclarent leur passion, Scene 3 Prélude a délivré les captifs. Armide et Hidraot jurent qu’un tel mais un sombre pressentiment hante Armide, qui veut 5 Marche 3:32 “Ah! quelle erreur! quelle folie!” ennemi n’échappera pas à leur vengeance. prendre le conseil des Enfers. Elle se retire et laisse les “Armide est encor plus aimable” (Chœur) Plaisirs et des Amants fortunés divertir Renaud. En son (Hidraot, Chœur) Premier Air Acte II : Artémidore, l’un des chevaliers sauvés par absence, Ubalde et le Chevalier danois découvrent 6 Sarabande: Rondeau 5:49 Second Air, “On s’étonnerait moins que la saison nouvelle” Renaud, fait l’éloge de son libérateur et l’adjure de fuir Renaud et brisent le sortilège d’Armide. Revenue à “ Suivons Armide, et chantons sa Victoire” (Une Bergère héroïque) l’endroit où règne Armide. Renaud assure Artémidore temps, elle supplie celui qu’elle aime de ne pas la quitter (Phénice, Chœur) First Air que son cœur est à l’abri des sortilèges d’Armide. ou de l’emmener captive avec lui. Le Devoir et la Gloire “Que la douceur d’un triomphe est extrême” (Chœur) Hidraot et Armide invoquent des démons pour endormir obligent Renaud à abandonner Armide, mais il exprime (Sidonie, Chœur) Renaud. Le héros admire le paysage qui l’entoure et la pitié qu’elle lui inspire. Restée seule, la magicienne Scene 5 s’assied pour se reposer. Les démons, qui ont pris au cœur brisé déclare qu’il ne lui reste que l’espoir de se Scene 4 # Prélude 4:40 l’apparence de nymphes et de bergers, ensorcellent venger. Elle donne alors aux démons l’ordre de détruire 7 “O Ciel! O disgrace cruelle!” 1:52 “Enfin il est en ma puissance” Renaud. Armide entre, bien décidée à le tuer dans son son palais enchanté, espérant ainsi enterrer à jamais son (Aronte, Armide, Hidraot, Chœur) (Armide) sommeil, mais elle s’éprend de lui et se dit que sa plus amour maudit. grande victoire serait d’employer sa magie pour le faire 8 Entr’acte 0:41 $ Entr’acte 1:50 tomber sous son emprise et l’obliger à l’aimer. Elle Traductions françaises de David Ylla-Somers (Marche)

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Jean-Baptiste LULLY Also available: (1632-1687) The Tragedy of Armide Libretto by Philippe Quinault (1635-1688) Edition for the Œuvres complètes by Lois Rosow Publisher: Verlag Olms, Hildesheim • Distribution: Barenreiter

Armide ...... Stephanie Houtzeel, Mezzo-soprano Renaud ...... Robert Getchell, Tenor Hidraot; Ubalde ...... François Loup, Bass Artémidore; La Haine ...... William Sharp, Baritone Phénice; Lucinde ...... Ann Monoyios, Soprano Sidonie ...... Miriam Dubrow, Soprano Le Chevalier danois; Un Amant fortuné ...... Tony Boutté, Tenor Aronte ...... Darren Perry, Baritone Une Bergère héroïque ...... Adria McCulloch, Soprano Une Naïade ...... Tara McCredie, Soprano 8.660118-19 Opera Lafayette • Ryan Brown

Opera Lafayette would like to thank The Florence Gould Foundation, The Marpat Foundation, Areva, Inc., Pernod Ricard USA, Jerald and Alice Clark, Bill and Cari Gradison, and the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center for their help in making this recording possible. Opera Lafayette is also deeply grateful to Marie-Hélène Forget for her extraordinary efforts to help bring music of the French Baroque to the United States. 8.660196-97

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Also available: 2 CDs

Jean-Baptiste LULLY The Tragedy of Armide

Houtzeel • Getchell Loup • Sharp Monoyios • Dubrow Boutté • Perry McCulloch • McCredie Opera Lafayette 8.557993 Ryan Brown 8.660209-10 20 CMYK NAXOS NAXOS Armide represents the culmination of the long and fruitful career of Jean-Baptiste Lully, the most powerful musician at the court of Louis XIV and the first important composer of French opera. Though not his final composition, Armide was his last complete tragédie en musique and the last work he wrote in collaboration with librettist Philippe Quinault. It was an instant and enduring success: a crowd-pleaser at its initial production and a perennial favourite of audiences DDD LULLY: and critics in the 18th century. LULLY: Jean-Baptiste 8.660209-10 Playing Time LULLY 2:01:49

The Tragedyof Armide (1632-1687) The Tragedyof Armide The Tragedy of Armide Armide ...... Stephanie Houtzeel, Mezzo-soprano Renaud ...... Robert Getchell, Tenor Hidraot; Ubalde ...... François Loup, Bass Artémidore; La Haine ...... William Sharp, Baritone Phénice; Lucinde ...... Ann Monoyios, Soprano Sidonie ...... Miriam Dubrow, Soprano Le Chevalier danois; Un Amant fortuné ...... Tony Boutté, Tenor

Aronte ...... Darren Perry, Baritone www.naxos.com Disc made in Canada. Printed and assembled USA. Booklet notes in English • Notice en français

Une Bergère héroïque ...... Adria McCulloch, Soprano &

Une Naïade ...... Tara McCredie, Soprano Opera Lafayette • Ryan Brown 2008 Naxos Rights International Ltd. CD 1 55:33 CD 2 66:16 1 Ouverture 2:18 1-5 Act III 20:54 2-8 Act I 24:40 6-9 Act IV 15:28 9-$ Act II 28:35 0-$ Act V 29:55 A full track list can be found on pages 2 and 3 of the booklet The French libretto and an English translation can be accessed at www.naxos.com/libretti/660209.htm

8.660209-10 Recorded at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, University of Maryland, USA, 8.660209-10 from 2nd to 5th February, 2007 • Producer: Max Wilcox • Engineers: Max Wilcox and Antonino d’Urzo Editors: Antonino d’Urzo and Ryan Brown • Booklet notes: Ryan Brown and Lois Rosow Cover image: Rinaldo and Armida by Sir Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641) (Louvre, Paris, France, Lauros / Giraudon / The Bridgeman Art Library)