Antonio Salieri : Armida

Lenneke Ruiten (soprano) as Armida, Teresa Iervolino (mezzo-soprano) as Ismene, Florie Valiquette (soprano) as Rinaldo, Ashley Riches (baritone) as Ubaldo

Chœur de Chambre de Namur / Les Talens Lyriques

Musical Director : Christophe Rousset

Ardent defender of the work of Antonio Salieri, in whom he sees much more than the unfortunate rival of Mozart, Christophe Rousset continues to explore his repertoire. After Les Danaïdes, Les Horaces et Tarare, presented in 2018 at the theater in Caen, he returns this time with a youth opera by the Italian composer, Armida, performed here in a concert version.
Inspired by Tasso's epic poem, La Jerusalem libérée, Armida recounts the transgressive loves of this Muslim enchantress, fallen queen of Damascus, and of Rinaldo, a valiant Christian crusader. This confrontation, via the characters, between West and East found an immediate echo during the creation in Vienna, besieged twice by the Ottomans.
In Gluck's revolutionary wake, Armida fuses Italian-style melodic richness into an avant-garde work while placing it in the dramatic framework of French lyric tragedy. Tightened into three short acts and centered around only four characters, the work retains all its intensity under the enthusiastic direction of Christophe Rousset, one of the great performers of the 18th century repertoire. This program will be recordered in Aparté.