About the work
Achille in Sciro is an opera seria in three acts by Giuseppe Sarti, setting Pietro Metastasio's libretto. Sarti, then Hofkapellmeister in Copenhagen, wrote it for the theatre on Kongens Nytorv, where it premiered in autumn 1759; twenty years later he wrote a second setting in Florence.
Plot
The young Achilles, whose mother Thetis fears his death before Troy, is disguised as a girl named Pirra and hidden at the court of King Lycomedes on the island of Skyros. There he falls in love with the king's daughter Deidamia, which endangers his disguise. When Odysseus arrives seeking warriors for the Trojan War, he exposes Achilles through a ruse; Achilles is allowed to marry Deidamia before setting off for war.
Cultural significance
Metastasio wrote the text in 1736 for the Viennese wedding of Maria Theresa and Francis Stephen of Lorraine, himself calling it a 'dramma immaginato' lacking real conflict. It nonetheless inspired more than 30 composers, including two settings by Niccolò Jommelli. Sarti's first, Copenhagen setting of 1759 falls in his years as tutor to the Danish crown prince.