Rossini's Armida is one of the finest of musical realisations of Tasso's tale of the temptress with supernatural powers. Only Handel, Gluck and the characteristically egregious Brahms could be said to be in that league.
Written for the gala re-opening of Naples's fire-gutted Teatro San Carlo in the autumn of 1817, Rossini's Armida is in many ways representative of his Naples years; there is a clutch of virtuoso tenor roles and a typically powerful showpiece finale, written for Isabella Colbran, in which Armida destroys her palace and rides off into the night with a chorus of Furies.
The range of dramatic colour is, however, extraordinary. Rossini had not previously attempted so explicitly romantic a subject, with sensual love-music and all the Weberish (pre-Weber) diablerie of the Fury-infested forest scene. Yet this is a work which also looks back, in the music of the crusader knights, to the prelapsarian candeur virginale of Tancredi (Venice, 1813). It is also one of the most scenically spectacular of Rossini's scores with a massive ballet sequence mid-way through Act 2.
Since the deletion of the far from satisfactory Gatti recording on Sony Classical (3/95), this splendid 1991 Scimone recording (Arts Music says 1992, which is plainly wrong) has been doubly missed. Cecilia Gasdia is not the raunchiest or most alluring of Armidas (Callas's flirtation with the role at the 1952 Florence Maggio Musicale spoilt us all for ever) but she is a skilled Rossinian and she sings well. The stars of the show, over and above Scimone's wonderfully alert and gutsy I Solisti Veneti, are the three tenors. They acquit themselves (happy chance) especially well in the celebrated Trio in Act 3 where Rinaldo sees his reflection in the shield. Chris Merritt is as persuasive as Rinaldo the warrior as he is as Rinaldo the bemused but somewhat stilted lover (the musical concatenations of the Act 3 duet are expertly negotiated). William Matteuzzi is also superb, both as Goffredo and as Carlo, his stainlessly gleaming tone apt to the bright world of chivalric endeavour. To these, Bruce Ford, marginally darker voiced, is the perfect complement. The bass plays a smaller part in the action, but Ferruccio Furlanetto is very fine in a role originally written for the great Michele Benedetti.
The lack of an English translation of the libretto, or a synopsis in any language, is as serious an annoyance here as it was at the time of the original release, but Armida suffers less in this respect than some of Rossini's other less familiar operas. The plot is relatively straightforward and the drama, bedded, as it is, deep in the music, is plainly there to be thrilled to by anyone with ears to hear. At the new super-budget price, this is an operatic bargain no one interested in Italian or early romantic opera should knowingly ignore.'