About the work
Armida is a dramma per musica in three acts by Antonio Salieri to a libretto by Marco Coltellini, based on Torquato Tasso's epic poem Jerusalem Delivered. It premiered at the Vienna Burgtheater on 2 June 1771 — Salieri's first opera seria.
Plot
The sorceress Armida falls in love with the crusader knight Rinaldo and uses her magic to keep him from the battle for Jerusalem. When his companions persuade Rinaldo to return to his army, Armida must let him go and is left alone with her grief and desire for revenge.
Cultural significance
With Armida, the twenty-one-year-old Salieri, clearly influenced by Christoph Willibald Gluck's operatic reform, scored an immediate success that established him as a serious composer at the Viennese court.