Armide

First edition of the opera libretto.

Full red morocco binding, spine with five raised bands and panels stamped with fleurs-de-lys, boards framed three times in gilt, stamped at center with the arms of the Marquis de Louvois and de Courtenvaux, gilt roll-tooling to the edges, marbled paper endpapers and pastedowns, contemporary binding.

A few scuffs to the lower cover, binding with light spotting.

Illustrated with a superb frontispiece by Berin (Berain), who also designed the opera's sets, etched by Jean Dolivar, depicting the destruction of Armide's palace by the demons at the close of the work.

A superb copy of Lully's penultimate operatic tragedy, sumptuously bound with the arms of his contemporary and "colleague" within the French court: the celebrated Marquis de Louvois, who played an essential role in the circumstances surrounding the work's creation.

This masterful late work of the Florentine composer would prove his last collaboration with his longtime librettist, the poet Philippe Quinault: "The opera Armide is Lulli's masterpiece, and Armide's monologue is the masterpiece of this opera" (Diderot, Au petit prophète de Boesmischbroda, au Grand Prophète Monet, 1753)

This first edition of Armide, composed by Lully, who reigned supreme over the pleasures of the court, found its place in the library of a figure equally central to this golden era of XVIIth-century France: Louvois, holder of the kingdom's political and administrative power, whose responsibilities notably included supervision of Lully's Académie Royale de Musique. As Thierry Sarmant recalls, "The early years of Louvois's superintendency corresponded to the last great creative years of Lully: he produced Amadis in 1684, Roland and the Idylle sur la Paix in 1685, and Armide in 1686. The subjects, inspired romance rather than fable as in the earlier decades of the reign, are thought to have been chosen by Louis XIV." (Les Demeures du Soleil, Louis XIV, Louvois et la surintendance des bâtiments du Roi).

A letter from Louvois reveals that he personally presented the opera to the king:

I have reported to the king on the subject of the prologue of the opera Armide, which His Majesty has approved, and so you may proceed with this project, which I am returning to you. (Letter to Philippe Quinault, of the Académie française, Versailles, 7 January 1686 (A1 761, fol. 104).

He had undertaken the same presentation the previous year, for the opera Roland: "It will be noted that this approval was given about a month before the premiere of each work [Roland and Armide, both inspired by Tasso's La Gerusalemme liberata], which suggests that the prologues were written after the five acts. One may also conclude that Quinault and Lully worked quickly to finish the words (the libretto was printed before the first performances) and the music of these prologues, or that their work was already well advanced and that they were nearly certain their project would not be rejected." (Buford Norman).

Armide came about against a backdrop of court intrigue, and above all amid a scandal of morals that struck the Surintendant de la Musique and concerned Louvois directly. One of Lully's young pages, presented as his lover, had been arrested a year earlier by men placed under Louvois's authority. This notorious Brunet affair was nonetheless covered up by the minister himself, since his own cousin was involved and shared the great Lully's preferences.

Louis XIV distanced himself from his composer despite having personally chosen the subject of Armide. When the opera premiered on 15 February 1686 on the stage of the Académie Royale de Musique at the Palais-Royal, the monarch was not present. The Grand Dauphin attended the performance, conducted by Colasse, with sets by Bérain who also designed the frontispiece of this libretto. Whether Louvois was among the audience remains unknown…

Lully is remembered above all as the great protégé of Colbert, Louvois's rival. He maintained a complex relationship with Colbert's formidable and irascible successor. "Little trace" of their exchanges remains (Sarmant, ibid.) It is known that Louvois did not hesitate to intervene in the affairs of Lully's Académie, which fell under his authority: "In April 1685, Louvois ordered Lully to dismiss from the opera a certain Ribon, accused of 'cabals.' In December 1686, he forbade him to give a performance of the opera in Paris, a city within the département of Seignelay, on Christmas Eve. It was also Louvois who gave Mme Lully his instructions concerning the opera's dancers after the death of the surintendant de la musique," reports Sarmant.

Surviving anecdotes recount that Louvois had famously opposed Lully's appointment as secretary:

"M. de Louvois, solicited by the gentlemen of the chancellery which he was part of since all secretaries of state must also be secretaries to the King, took great offense. He reproached Lulli for a boldness unbecoming a man such as himself, who had no recommendations or services to his name other than having made people laugh. 'Well, good heavens!' Lulli replied, 'you would do the same if you could.' [...] Followed by a crowd of courtiers, [Louvois] soon after encountered Lulli at Versailles: 'Good day,' he said to him in passing, 'good day, my confrère [colleague]!' which was then regarded as a witty remark of M. de Louvois."

Despite this quip often cited by Lully's biographers, Louvois readily called upon the services of Lully's orchestra for the historic reception he gave at Meudon in honor of the king in 1685.

An eminently prestigious copy, linking two of the most influential figures of the Sun King's reign. This ultimate masterpiece was also marked by royal absence: Armide enjoyed public triumph at the very moment when Lully, punished for his then-illicit conduct, was losing the favor of his greatest patron.