Page "Antonio Salieri" Paragraph 9

Salieri's first great success was in the realm of serious opera.

Commissioned for an unknown occasion Salieri's Armida was based on Torquato Tasso's epic poem La Gerusalemme liberata ( Jerusalem Delivered ) and premiered on 2 June 1771.

Armida is a tale of love and duty in conflict and is saturated in magic.

The opera is set during the First Crusade and it features a dramatic mix of ballet, aria, ensemble and choral writing combining theatricality, scenic splendor and high emotionalism.

The work clearly followed in Gluck's footsteps and embraced his reform of serious opera begun with Orfeo ed Euridice and Alceste.

The libretto to Armida was by Marco Coltellini the house poet for the imperial theaters.

While Salieri followed the precepts set forth by Gluck and his librettist Ranieri de ' Calzabigi in the preface to Alceste ; Salieri also drew on some musical ideas from the more traditional opera-seria and even opera buffa, creating a new synthesis in the process.

Armida was translated into German and widely performed, especially in the northern German states, where it helped to establish Salieri's reputation as an important and innovative modern composer It would also be the first opera to receive a serious preparation in a piano and vocal reduction by Carl Friedrich Cramer in 1783.