The story concerns Frankish soldiers on a Crusade in the Holy Land. The hero Rinaldo gets distracted from his quest by Armida, the daughter of the King of Damascus. She uses her evil spells to seduce him, and two of his comrades have to enter her magic garden to bring him to his senses and rescue him.
At the end of the opera a Chorus of Demons announces that
Armida is going to Hell.

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ALCINA (sorceress)- "Only Tears Remain to Me". Sutherland's interpretation of a slow yet demanding lament.

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A part from Theodorakis' "Epitafios", a composition on a poem by Yiannis Ritsos.
This is the song "WHENEVER YOU STOOD NEAR THE WINDOW"(STO PARATHYRI STEKOSSOUN). Singing Mary Linda,adaptation M.Hadjidakis. Edited clips from the documentary "Milos in 4 parts"
Mikis Theodorakis, who set the poem to music, in Paris on the year 1958, has written about it:
"I started receiving from Yannis Ritsos, one after another, the books he began republishing upon his retum from exile. I remember his dedication to me, on the volume of EPITAPHIOS : "This book was burnt by Metaxas", in 1938, under the columns of Zeus the OIympian"

LYRICS

Whenever you stood near the window, your brawny shoulder-blades
filled up the whole entranceway, the sea and the fishermen's boats

The house overflowed with your shadow, tall as an archangel,
and the bright bud of the evening-star sparkled up there in your ear.

Our window was the gateway for all the world, leading out
towards paradise, my dear light, where the stars were all in bloom.

As you stood there with your gaze fixed on the glimmering sunset,
you looked like a helmsman steering a ship, which was your own room.

ln the warm blue twilight of evening - ahoy, away -
you sailed me straight into the stillness of the milky way
.
But now this ship has foundered, its rudder has broken down,
and down in the depths of the ocean, I'm drifting all alone.

PLEASE WATCH THE BEST QUALITY VERSION.

______To Fotis & Anthi.

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