Armida by JOSEPH HAYDN

If you believe "them" - your parents, your church, society, whoever "they" are - serious fraternization with people outside your race, religion, ethnic group, or social class is something hardly worth contemplating. Sure, you might have to do BUSINESS with your inferiors - they always seem to be inferior, don't they? - and you might even have to WORK for them on occasion. But friendship? Intimacy? Respect? Only LOSERS would go that far. Or maybe lovers. The story of the sorceress Armida and her love for a Crusader was a popular way of conveying this message for a couple of centuries. It was especially popular with opera composers. But the message it conveys has been around longer than opera.

Take the Bible. You know, St. Paul's warning that "children of the light" should have "no fellowship with darkness." Some folks have taken that to some pretty amazing extremes. For example, until fairly recently, one of the major Christian denominations took the view that their particular branch of the faith was the only one founded and sanctioned by God Himself. So, anyone who refused to convert, they said, was doomed to roast in Hell. And for a REAL twisting of the scripture that admonishes children of the light to have no fellowship with darkness, you can't beat the segregation laws that once tainted the constitutions of Germany, South Africa, and the United States, and gave birth to new words and phrases that will live forever in the memories of those who survived them; terms like Jim Crow, apartheid, final solution.

The thing is, any student of theology with an ounce of sanity will tell you the scriptural admonitions about light fraternizing with darkness weren't intended as an ethical license to oppress, segregate, or exterminate anyone. St. Paul's words simply advise early Christians against intimate relationships with pagans, warning that such relationships can often have truly disastrous consequences.

Which brings us back to opera, and the story of Armida. That tale gives us the same warning, and it was set by any number of composers, including Haydn. Did you even know that Papa Haydn wrote operas? He did. Lots of them! So this week on At the Opera, with Lou Santacroce, we'll prepare for Haydn's ARMIDA with conductor Jane Glover, who tells us about Haydn, the opera composer. Lou also talks to Professor Marilyn Migel about the legend of Armida; and Scott Speck will lead us to the opera's musical landmarks.

After that, tune in the opera itself on NPR World of Opera, with Steve Curwood.

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