The beautiful and, thanks to her magical powers, irresistible Armide, niece of the Syrian king Hidraot, uses her gifts to weaken the fighting spirit of the crusaders on their campaign of conquest in the Middle East. Only one resists her arts and shows Armide the limits of her power: Renaud, the bravest of the Christian Crusader army. Armide vows revenge.
Deep down, however, her reaction is exceedingly human: doesn't Renaud's very refusal of love make him seem especially attractive? And so, for Armide, this knight becomes a test of her heart. Despite all warnings, she risks everything for love - to the point of losing the one she loves.
Christoph Willibald Gluck composed the opera for Paris, drawing on a 16th-century epic by Torquato Tasso. The love story, flanked by demons and allegorical figures and told in rich colours, had already been set to music in Paris 100 years earlier by Jean-Baptiste Lully, for a long time the most important composer at the court of the Sun King Louis XIV. In 1777, Gluck now presented his version, which focused even more strongly on the character of Armide.
Director Lydia Steier is working on this great choral opera, together with Gianluca Falaschi.
Text source and more information about this event: http://www.staatstheater-mainz.com/web/events/oper1617/armide
