Opera on 3 - Live from the Met: Rossini's "Armida"

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Saturday, 5th March, 2011 - 18:00 –21:45

From the Metropolitan Opera, New York. Riccardo Frizza conducts.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Well, this went down like a lead balloon. Will anyone be listening? I don't know the work at all.

[Flosshilde]

I will, definitely. Rossini's serious operas aren't heard often enough.

[kernelbogey]

I will be listening - I generally listen to Met broadcasts when I'm in on a Saturday night (quite often, actually ). I have often heard extracts on R3 and don't know it at all or even what the libretto is about. Will investigate during the day. Thanks for the heads up AS. (Did you finish that pack of Muesli? )

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Thanks for the heads up AS. (Did you finish that pack of Muesli? )

You're welcome, KB.

[kernelbogey]

I have often heard extracts on R3

Untrue - I had a senior moment and got muddled up with some Handel opera. This should be a treat with Renee Fleming in the title role.

[vinteuil]

got muddled up with some Handel opera. .

There must be more Armide operas than any other - Gluck, Lully, Haydn all had a go... any others?

If I can I shall certainly try and give the Rossini a hearing - I agree that we don't hear his serious operas nearly enough; I think they are undervalued.

[vinteuil]

... wiki rushes to answer my question -

The story of Armida and Rinaldo has been the basis for several operas:

Armide (1686) by Jean-Baptiste Lully
Rinaldo (1711) by Handel
Armida al campo d'Egitto (1718) by Vivaldi
Armida abbandonata (1770) by Jommelli
Armida (1771) by Salieri
Armida (1772) by Sacchini
Armide (1777) by Gluck
Armida (1779) by Mysliveček
Renaud (1783), also by Sacchini
Armida (1784) by Haydn
Armida (1817) by Rossini
Armida (1904) by Dvořák
Armida (2005) by Judith Weir
Brahms composed a cantata entitled Rinaldo based on the story.

[Flosshilde]

Heavens, Vinteul, I knew about Handel's Rinaldo of course , but had no idea there were so many others!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

There must be more Armide operas than any other - Gluck, Lully, Haydn all had a go... any others?
.

Surely "Orpheus and Euridice" has had even more outings.

[Flosshilde]

Well, I did enjoy it - the opening of Act 3 was beautiful - pity the singing didn't live up to the music.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Surely "Orpheus and Euridice" has had even more outings.

EA: that seems a fair bet! My opera dictionary says Armida has generated about 40 operas. It doesn't give a comparable number for Orpheus but its listing looks like 60-odd judging by column-length...

...and that doesn't even include Sir Harrison Birtwistle's contributions

[vinteuil]

wiki provides the following for operas on the Orpheus story -

1600 - Jacopo Peri – Euridice, the first genuine opera whose music survives to this day.
1602 - Giulio Caccini – Euridice
1607 - Claudio Monteverdi – Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, widely regarded as the first operatic masterwork.
1616 - Domenico Belli - Orfeo dolente, a set of intermedi presented between the acts of Tasso's Aminta
1619 - Stefano Landi – La morte d'Orfeo
1638 - Heinrich Schutz - "Orpheus und Euridice" (music lost)
1647 - Luigi Rossi – Orfeo, one of the first operas to be performed in France. Rossi's own wife died while he was composing the score.
1654 - Carlo d'Aquino – Orfeo
1659 - Johann Jakob Löwe von Eisenach – Orpheus von Thracien
1672 - Antonio Sartorio – Orfeo
1673 - Matthew Locke - Orpheus and Euridice, a masque presented between the acts of Elkanah Settle's The Empress of Morocco
1676 - Giuseppe di Dia – Orfeo
1677 - Francesco della Torre – Orfeo
1683 - Johann Philipp Krieger – Orpheus und Eurydice
1683 - Antonio Draghi – La lira d' Orfeo
c 1685 - Marc-Antoine Charpentier – La descente d'Orphée aux enfers
1689 - Bernardo Sabadini – Orfeo
1690 - Louis Lully – Orphée
1698 - Reinhard Keiser – Die sterbende Eurydice oder Orpheus
1699 - André Campra – Orfeo nell'inferni
1701 - John Weldon – Orpheus and Euridice
1715 - Johann Joseph Fux – Orfeo ed Euridice
1722 - Georg Caspar Schurmann - "Orpheus"
1726 - Georg Philipp Telemann – Orpheus
1740 - John Frederick Lampe – Orpheus and Eurydice
c. 1740 - Jean-Philippe Rameau – (unfinished project)
1749 - Giovanni Alberto Ristori – I lamenti d'Orfeo
1750 - Georg Christoph Wagenseil – Euridice
1752 - Carl Heinrich Graun – Orfeo
1762 - Christoph Willibald Gluck – Orfeo ed Euridice (French version, Orphée et Euridice, 1774)
1767 - François Hippolyte Barthélemon – The Burletta of Orpheus
1775 - Antonio Tozzi – Orfeo ed Euridice
1776 - Ferdinando Bertoni – Orfeo ed Euridice (to the same libretto as Gluck's more famous work)
1781 - Luigi Torelli – Orfeo
1785 - Friedrich Benda – Orpheus
1786 - Johann Gottlieb Naumann – Orpheus og Eurydice
1788 - Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf – Orpheus der Zweyte
1788 - Johann Friedrich Reichardt – Orpheus
1789 - Vittorio Trento – Orfeo negli Elisi
1791 - Joseph Haydn – L'anima del filosofo, ossia Orfeo ed Euridice
1791 - Ferdinando Paer – Orphée et Euridice
1792 - Peter Winter – Orpheus und Euridice
1793 - Prosper-Didier Deshayes – Le petit Orphée (parody of Gluck's opera)
1796 - Luigi Lamberti – Orfeo
1796 - Francesco Morolin – Orfeo ed Euridice
c.1796, before 1797 - Antoine Dauvergne – Orphée (not performed)
1798 - Gottlob Bachmann – Der Tod des Orpheus/Orpheus und Euridice
1802 - Carl Conrad Cannabich – Orpheus
1807 - Friedrich August Kanne – Orpheus
1813 - Ferdinand Kauer – Orpheus und Euridice, oder So geht es im Olympus zu
1814 - Marchese Francesco Sampieri – Orfeo (cantata?)
1858 - Jacques Offenbach - Orphée aux enfers
1860 - Gustav Michaelis – Orpheus auf der Oberwelt
1867 - Karl Ferdinand Konradin – Orpheus im Dorfe (operetta)
1907 - Fernando de Azevedo e Silva – A morte de Orfeu
1907–16 - Claude Debussy – (unfinished project)
1913 - Jean Roger-Ducasse – Orphée, premiered at the Opéra Garnier in a production mounted by Ida Rubinstein.
1925 - Gian Francesco Malipiero – L'Orfeide, cycle in three parts: I.La morte delle maschere, II.Sette canzoni, III. Orfeo
1925 - Darius Milhaud – Les malheurs d'Orphée, chamber opera with a libretto by Armand Lunel
1926 - Ernst Krenek – Orpheus und Eurydike
1932 - Alfredo Casella – La favola d'Orfeo, chamber opera after Poliziano's L'Orfeo
1951 - Pierre Schaeffer - Orphée 51
1953 - Pierre Schaeffer, Pierre Henry - Orphée 53
1956 - Tom Jobim, Vinícius de Moraes – Orfeo da Conceição (translated to cinema as Black Orpheus)
1978 - Hans Werner Henze – Orpheus (Viennese version 1986)
1986 - Harrison Birtwistle – The Mask of Orpheus
1993 - Philip Glass – Orphée, chamber opera with a libretto adapted by the composer from Jean Cocteau's film of the same name
1996 - Lorenzo Ferrero - La nascita di Orfeo, musical action in one act, libretto by Lorenzo Ferrero and Dario Del Corno, premiered at the Teatro Filarmonico
2005 - Ricky Ian Gordon – Orpheus and Euridice, an hour-long song cycle in two acts
2010 - Anais Mitchell - Hadestown, a 'folk opera' set in Depression era America (recording released 2010)

[greenilex]

I thought the ballet music from the middle act of Armida was gorgeous. I understand why the Met employees couldn't stop whistling / singing it. They say earworm, we say "got it on the brain".