Watch HDToday. Stage director Mariame Clément takes a critical look at the Crusades with her 2015 production of Rossini’s rarely-performed Armida. Premiered on November 11, 1817 at Naples’s Teatro di San Carlo, the three-act opera tells the tale of a cunning sorceress who manipulates a group of knights defending Jerusalem to abandon their posts and cast aside their noble and heroic ideals.