Antonin Dvorak - Armida

Antonin DVORAK (1841-1904)

Armida, Op. 115/B 206

Pavel Daniluk (Bass), George Fortune (Bass), Vratislav Kriz (Baritone),

Miroslav Podskalsky (Bass), Zdenek Harvánek (Baritone), Milan Bürger (Bass),

Richard Sporka (Tenor), Jan Markvart (Baritone), Vladimir Nacházel (),

Roman Janal (Bass), Joanna Borowska (Soprano), Monika Brychtová (),

Wieslaw Ochman (Tenor)

Czech Philharmonic Orchestra,  Prague Chamber Chorus

Gerd Albrecht

Date of Recording: 1995

After the success of Rusalka the composer immediately began searching for a new suitable libretto – opera was the only musical genre he was considering at that time. Nevertheless, it would be quite a while before he would finally embark upon the libretto Armida by Jaroslav Vrchlicky. The composer initially sought further collaboration with Jaroslav Kvapil, yet – probably since Kvapil did not have the time available – this was not to be. Dvorak thus returned for a short while to sketches he had begun earlier for an opera inspired by Czech mythology, The Death of Vlasta. Before Dvorak, Karel Pippich’s libretto had previously drawn the attention of Bedrich Smetana as well, and, after him, Zdenek Fibich, but neither of them had been impressed enough to write an opera setting for it. It is not known whether Dvorak made a final decision to use this libretto, however, when young Otakar Ostrcil visited him out of the blue with the request that he abandon his composition because he was working on the same text himself, Dvorak readily complied with his wishes. From the memoirs of Otakar Hostinsky we learn that Dvorak had also taken an interest in his libretto for Cinderella at that time, but this initiative ultimately came to nothing. Long months of inactivity were extremely unusual for Dvorak. In a letter to his friend Emil Kozanek dated February 1902, the composer writes: “I have been without work for more than fourteen months, I cannot make a start on anything and I don’t know how long my current state of mind will continue.”

When, in February 1902, Dvorak mentioned in the company of poet Jaroslav Vrchlicky that he had vainly been seeking a high-quality libretto for a new opera, Vrchlicky pointed out to the composer that he had offered him a libretto entitled Armida fourteen years previously but, back then, Dvorak – perhaps engrossed in other composition work – had rejected it. The fact that Dvorak was even now at pains to decide whether or not Vrchlicky’s text was suitable for his requirements, is eloquently summed up by Jaroslav Kvapil: “It was certainly a difficult birth back then: Dvorak forced himself to do it; the subject matter and form didn’t feel right for him, and I witnessed his bad temper on several occasions. Sometimes he blamed me for leaving him in the lurch.” That Dvorak eventually decided to use the text for Armida was not because the libretto appealed to him, but more for the reason – probably quite justified – that he would in any case be unable to lay his hands on anything better. Dvorak was also persuaded by the libretto’s universal theme, which he had sought for years in his endeavours to make an impact on the foreign stage, and the fact that the text in certain respects (obligations towards God versus love and passion) was reminiscent of Wagner’s Tannhauser, an opera Dvorak had always greatly admired. He began writing the music in March 1902 and, as his work on the opera progressed, he gradually warmed to the libretto and, according to the memoirs of his son Otakar, he was even entirely complimentary about it. Work on the opera lasted almost a year and a half.

Characteristics of the musical setting

Armida is Dvorak’s last completed work. It is the product of supreme proficiency in which the composer masterfully incorporated everything he had achieved and perfected during his life. Despite the difficulties he faced writing a musical setting to a text which was not ideal for the purpose, Dvorak succeeded in creating an exceptional piece of music. As in his preceding Rusalka, the basic principle of the musical-dramatic construction is the leitmotif, which is here introduced with a considerable measure of originality and invention. What is, however, most characteristic of Armida’s music is Dvorak’s ability to illustrate the exotic environment of the Orient. If we take a look at the composer’s entire oeuvre to date, we will note that he often resorted to the stylisation of various musical dialects. However, this was never the mechanical selection of existing thematic material. Whatever he sought in his music, whether Moravian folk inspiration in his Moravian Duets, impulses from folk dance types in his Slavonic Dances, echoes of Slovak folklore in his Gypsy Songs, the Russian folk temperament in the chorus scenes of the opera Dimitrij, elements of Negro music in his Ninth Symphony, or the distinctive musical expression of Native Americans in his String Quintet in E flat major – all have one thing in common: Dvorak’s voice always comes through. His unique invention continually and naturally blends with exotic influences to create a unified, homogeneous expression.

In Armida, as elsewhere, this supreme skill was brought to perfection, despite the fact that (or all the more so since) elements of oriental music are somewhat removed from the Czech environment and have little in common with the traditional notion of the Slav operatic genre. In his score for Armida Dvorak eloquently suggests the atmosphere of the Near East, particularly through his melodies and harmonies, but also in his method of instrumentation (e.g. female voices in combination with harps and woodwind). The viewer or listener senses the exotic environment in the very first bars of Act One, which is introduced by the call of the muezzin from the minaret, alternated in the form of a rondo with some of the most beautiful choral passages in the composer’s entire operatic oeuvre. We will find a series of similar passages in the opera – both in the choruses and the soloists’ vocal lines, particularly the occasional ornamental melismata sung by the magician Ismen, and also in the purely instrumental segments.

Apart from recreating the atmosphere of the Orient, a task Dvorak faced for the first time in the case of this opera, the composer also had to decide how to approach the scenes depicting supernatural phenomena. He had accomplished this previously in his cycle of symphonic poems written to Erben’s Bouquet, and in the operas The Devil and Kate and Rusalka. Dvorak’s settings for these scenes provide a remarkable testimony of the kind of sounds his musical invention was able to summon. Ismen’s very first “magic trick”, where he conjures up an image of the enemy forces out of thin air, is striking for its sound effects and dramatic impact.

The third significant element of the score is the way in which the music portrays the romance between Armida and Rinald. Lovers naturally appear in almost all Dvorak’s previous stage works, yet never is this relationship expressed in such erotic shades as in Armida. This type of musical setting is surprising in composers of Dvorak’s mould, yet the fact remains that he kept close to the original text and endeavoured to depict the central characters’ intimate scenes with maximum conviction. For example, the dialogue in Act Two (“Your hair” – “Your brow” – “Your sweet lips, your body, oh, let me thus eternally dream, and look into your eyes serene”) is literally charged with passion and sensuality, which the composer achieves through sophisticated chromatic vocal lines.