Download 2012-Armide - Christ Church, Cooperstown

Christ Church, Cooperstown
Faith at the Opera
Session 2: Armide
Armide (premiered 1686) is considered the masterpiece of Jean-Baptiste Lully, the most important French
Opera composer of the era of King Louis XIV
 Baroque style: intense drama (unrealistic, emotional plots)
 Elegant, highly ornamented music
 Elaborate costumes and stage machinery
Plot: based on the tale of Rinaldo and Armida from Torquato Tasso’s Renaissance epic La Gerusalemme
Liberta (Jerusalem Restored): chivalric romance telling the story of the final days of the First Crusade
 Focuses on the seduction of the upright (but somewhat proud) Christian knight Renauld by the
sorceress Armide
 Armide’s fabulous beauty has allowed her to entrap and imprison many Christian knights
 She calls on demonic power (invokes Hate) to give her strength to enchant Renauld and slay him
 At the moment when she can slay Renauld (climax of the piece) she falls in love with him and
deepens the spell so he will love her
 Armide and Renauld enjoy a life of love and joy until another Christian knight (Ubalde) comes to
rescue Renauld, breaks the spell and takes him back to resume his duty
 Armide is devastated and vows revenge
Intentionally Religious theme: Crusades were very popular in 17th century—crusaders seen as model
Christian heroes, rescuing the oppressed and doing God’s work
The warriors whose admirable zeal
Urges them to show their valor and their faith
Seek an immortal glory (II.1)
 First Crusade (1094) especially prized because it was the most successful and untainted—called
by Pope Urban IV to liberate Palestinian Christians from Muslim rule and secure access to the
Holy Places for Christian pilgrims.
 King Louis XIV had become more pious as he approached end of his life—rejected operas on
mythological themes
 Interestingly, Lully eliminates Tasso’s ending of the story, which included Armida’s conversion
to Christianity
 Louis had just expelled the French Protestants (Huguenots)—opera was intended as a kind of
allegory of an upright France [Renauld] rejecting the allurements of Protestantism [Armide]
(triumph of wisdom and justice)
 Glimmerglass is highlighting this as a kind of multicultural, convention-breaking romance—but
the text doesn’t really support this. Armide isn’t shown as a Muslim, but as a pagan enchantress,
a minion of Satan, and the “love” between them is based on enchantment
Love and Freedom
Armide fears love because it is a form of captivity-forces her to renounce her freedom. She uses
seduction as a weapon—equates love with violence
The bonds of marriage scare me,
I fear the most tender attachments.
Ah! A heart becomes so unhappy
When freedom abandons it…
Against my enemies at will I unleash
The dark empire of Hell.
Love puts kings under my spell,
I am the sovereign mistress of a thousand loves
But my greatest happiness.
Is to be mistress of my own heart. (I.2)
On approaching the sleeping Renauld:
This victim is for me
Let me sacrifice him, leave to me
To see this proud heart expire under my blows. (II.2)
Renauld also resists love because he fears it will distract him from his duty—he is “proud Renauld”
I love freedom, nothing has compelled me
To commit myself up to now. (II.2)
When they fall in love, they find that love’s pleasures surpass the value of their former freedom
Armide: “How aimiable are the laws that bind my soul”
Renauld: “How enviable are the chains that bind me.” (V.1)
There are some parallels here to the way Saint Paul describes the process of salvation by Christ and the
demands of Christian conversion
Philippians 2:3-11: Jesus emptied himself of glory to take our nature and save us
“Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves. Let each of
you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among
yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality
with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the
likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death,
even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is
above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the
earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
 Jesus self-emptying is a process of losing freedom, surrendering violence, accepting humility
 This should also be our own “mind”—love that demands humility
Philippians 3:4-9a: Paul describes how much position, authority he renounced to accept Christ and his
promises
Though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If any other man thinks he has reason for
confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of
Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law a Pharisee, as to zeal a persecutor of the church, as
to righteousness under the law blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of
Christ. Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my
Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain
Christ and be found in him.
How does Paul’s testimony echo what Renauld and Armide discovered in their love?
Ephesians 5:21-28: Paul’s pattern for Christian domestic love—marital life—focuses on imitating this
pattern. Love and submission are equated
“Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord.
For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its
Savior. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands.
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify
her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to
himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without
blemish. Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves
himself.
 Mutual submission requires that both husband and wife begin the relationship with dignity and
freedom—they choose to renounce their power out of love for the other
Is this loss of freedom what Armide and Renauld fear?
How might this dynamic be related to the increasing resistance of so many people who love each other
deeply to marry?