1783 – The Music part 3 - Armida, drama queen!

Hob. #	Genre	Name	Instruments / Voices	Libretto
28:12	Opera seria Dramma eroico per musica	Armida	2 Sopranos, 3 Tenors & 1 Baritone - 1 Flute, 2 Oboes, 2 Clarinets, 2 Bassoons, 2 Horns or Trumpets, Timpani, Strings & Continuo	Combination of several settings, mainly Antonio Tozzi; finally edited by Nunziato Porta – story by Torquato Tasso

Rinaldo & Armida - Francesco Hayez (1813)

Just last year, when I was looking at Orlando paladino, I found myself bemoaning the fact that the story itself, a huge hit in Haydn's time, was practically unknown to us today, and so many of the assumptions made by the composer and librettist were invalidated by the different audience. And today we find we are dealing with nearly the identical situation with Armida; for who among us is fluently familiar with Torquato Tasso? Not I, thank you for asking. And yet, his epic poem, Jerusalem Delivered (La Gerusalemme liberata), was every bit as famous as Ariosto's Orlando furioso!

Naturally, there were many opera settings derived from this triumph of poesy. As with the Orlando saga, a story of knighthood and chivalry was a leading contender for the public of the time, in fact it still garners interest today. And when tied to the Crusades and a beautiful sorceress, what more could you ask? Apparently not a lot more, since a list of the more prominent settings includes these composers, a few of whom you no doubt will recognize: Lully, Handel, Vivaldi, Traetta, Jommelli, Salieri, Sacchini, Gluck, Mysliveček, Haydn, Sarti, Rossini & Dvořák! So what was this story which resonated so persistently through the last 400 years? 

Since Tasso lived after Ariosto, he was able to take some advantage of what was, in hindsight, the strength of Orlando; the chivalric aspects. Many of his descriptions of Rinaldo echo those of Ariosto's Orlando and his cohort. But Tasso went further and also incorporated the style and some actual features of the timeless Homeric descriptions of warfare of The Iliad, certainly a tested quantity of enduring popularity, then and now. Ultimately though, the simple fact of Tasso being an extraordinary poet carried the day for him and outweighed the fairly turbulent events of his life and lifestyle and made him a success for the ages.

I would suspect each of the Armida/Rinaldo operas are pretty much variations on a theme, that is, the story is relatively short and succinct, bounded by time, unlike Orlando furioso, which can (and does) go on forever! Jerusalem Delivered is about… Jerusalem delivered, an historical event, and thus defined. However, the distinctions come from the music, the depictions of the characters and display of their emotions through the developments of tone and harmony. Just the sort of thing which plays most into Haydn's strengths! Here is the story of the story;

Essentially we are looking at a love story between the sorceress Armida, partisan of the Saracen king, and the Christian knight Rinaldo. Idreno has prevailed upon Armida to bewitch and subsequently capture or otherwise disable the Christian knights, who are mounting a siege of Jerusalem intended to free it from the Saracens. Being beautiful, and a  witch to boot, she is quite good at completing her mission, suffice to say. Then, the downfall; she has captured some of Rinaldo's knights, but he arrives and frees them. Armida and Rinaldo are like flame and gasoline, however, and in that moment everything changes for both of them. While he is totally in her thrall, she is equally madly in love with him and won't betray him to Idreno. He is so besotted that he agrees to lead Idreno's army against the crusaders, but his friend Ubaldo pleads with him and eventually convinces him to leave Armida and return to the Crusader camp. It is the monumental standoff between love and duty, and duty wins. In all the settings of Armida, there are one of two ways which end the story. Either Armida, suicidal over her tragic love of the lost Rinaldo, ends the opera with a great solo scena, and then gets saved from suicide by Rinaldo at the end; which is the Armida abbandonata type, or an ensemble of main characters sings a farewell finale. It is this second type which Haydn chose, rather sadly in my opinion, although it is a very good, if brief, ensemble.

This was the last, arguably best and certainly most popular opera which Haydn wrote for Eszterháza Opera House. It was not his last opera nor his only opera seria as has been said here and there. Those honors go to his London opera, L'Anima del filosofo. But it was certainly the crowning achievement of the Esterhazy years. It was the Prince's favorite opera during the remainder of his life, receiving fifty-four performances in the last half of the '780's. It was also very quickly translated into German and performed all through that part of Europe.

Why did Haydn choose to set Armida? More importantly, perhaps, why opera seria, why now? The move towards seria from buffo, never really a takeover as such, began as early as 1776 with the performance at Eszterháza of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, then, in 1779, Haydn's own Metastasio opera L'Isola disabitata. Even though neither of these azione teatrales is an actual opera seria, they are both much more in that mold than anything we saw from Paisiello or Righini or even Haydn, up until now. An opera seria was a well-defined thing in the 18^th century mind. It was a dramma per musica, a 'drama with music', usually with six characters, in three acts. The plot was usually historical (or quasi-historical), and was large-scale and usually tragic. You had to have a king or similar substitute. The musical interest was usually concentrated on a series of 'exit arias', which were dramatically arranged situations which left one character on stage at the end of each scene or series of scenes to close out the action with an aria. The main action, meanwhile, was carried along by recitatives, mostly unaccompanied by orchestra (secco = dry).

Up until now, the closest Haydn got to seria was the inclusion of characters in his buffo operas who were seria types; i.e. – nobility, and giving them music which was tailored to their stereotyped role expectations. Thus we saw characters like Angelica and Medoro in last year's Orlando paladino, both nobility, and having music which reflected their status. All of this was initiated by the hiring of two seria specialists, soprano Matilda Bologna and tenor Prospero Braghetti to sing those roles. It is very possible to imagine their expert performances of the seria roles in Orlando gave impetus to Nicholas and Haydn to explore this genre more thoroughly. It was less than a year later when we see Sarti's Giulio Sabino, the first full-fledged seria work  to be performed at Eszterháza. And less than a year later we see our present Armida hit the boards.

Haydn learned much from Giulio Sabino. After his usual work of editing and preparing the performance material, he was as intimately familiar with it (nineteen performances this year!) as anyone save the original composer. And so when he came to choosing one among the dozens of available libretti for Armida, he chose one which closely resembled Giulio in many respects, such as number and types of characters and voices, number of scenes and acts, and even three ensembles, a duet at the end of Act I and a trio at the end of Act II! So he started out working from a great example and was able to make the best of something he knew was already good. It isn't known who was the exact author of the libretto, there have been many suppositions over the years, but John Rice in Haydn Yearbook XV speculates, with good reason, that it is a 1775 libretto by Antonio Tozzi which finally got the nod.

It wasn't long before opera seria disappeared from the stage, a victim of style and changing tastes, and the expansion of the middle class, which didn't care so much for operas dedicated to the virtues of kings and emperors, and didn't share in the education which made these stories so readily accessible to their intended audience. But for those who still hung on to the history of the genre, Haydn's Armida was top shelf material. A contemporary of Haydn's named Nicholas Framery, who published a biographical Notice sur Joseph Haydn in 1810, the year after Haydn's death, included this tale, probably true, although with that certain storytelling flourish in the French style of the day.

Sarti, composer of Haydn's favorite Giulio Sabino, was headed north (to St Petersburg) when his route took him close enough to Eszterháza to make a detour. He was curious to see the man whose many works, especially his symphonies, had made him famous throughout Europe. He wanted to call on Haydn and offer him mutual friendship. He arrived at the end of the day at the palace, and asked to speak to the famous Haydn. At this moment, he was told, it is impossible because the maestro is conducting an opera which is about to begin, and the Prince has just entered his box. He asks for and is given an excellent seat and finds the opera being sung is Armida. Since he knew none of Haydn's dramatic music, he was eager to hear it, and asked for a seat close to the orchestra. During the entire first act he applauded with enthusiasm, but towards the end of the second act, he could contain himself no longer and he leaped into the orchestra pit and embraced Haydn, who was likely astonished!

"It is Sarti who is embracing you, Sarti who wanted to hear your works but had no hope of admiring a work as beautiful as this!"

The Prince, who could see this but not hear it, was alarmed and wanted to know what was going on.

"It's Giulio Sabino" shouted Haydn, "It's the author of that superb music, Sarti, come to see his good friend Joseph". And so even though they were seeing each other for the first time, they swore friendship based on the comparable esteem they held for each other.

There are only two recordings of this fine work, I strongly recommend you try one of them and introduce yourself to opera seria, if you aren't friends with it already. And while you are at it, this might be a good time to review that Tasso book you shelved when you were in college. There might be a lot more attraction for you today!

Next time we will take a look at 1784, a year which finds our Haydn busier than ever!

Thanks for reading!