Opera (tragédie) in 5 acts with prologue, the text by P. Quinault, based on Torquato Tasso's epic poem Gerusalemme liberata, the selection in 1685 of Lully's patron, Louis XIV, from among several offered by Quinault. Regarded as one of the composer's greatest masterpieces, the opera was first performed at l’Opéra, Paris, 15 February 1686.  Roughly eight decades following Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, Lully produced Armide with his longtime collaborator, playwright Jean-Philippe Quinault. Together they had developed the genre of 'tragédie en musique' or 'tragédie lyrique', which served as a new form of opera, combining elements of classical French drama with ballet, the French song tradition, and a new form of recitative. Armide was one of Lully’s last operas and is therefore extremely developed in style. Unlike most of his operas, Armide concentrates on the sustained psychological development of a single character.  Because Lully had used his friendship with King Louis to secure a virtual monopoly on the public performance of stage music, it was only after his death that other opera composers emerged from his shadow. Jean-Philippe Rameau, fifty years his junior, eventually succeeded Lully as the dominant composer of French opera, but did not begin composing operas until 1733, when he was already almost 50. He was a highly controversial figure at the time, and his operas were subject to attacks by both the defenders of the French, Lullian tradition and the champions of Italian music.