About the work
Achille in Sciro is a three-act dramma per musica on the widely set libretto by Pietro Metastasio, first given music by Antonio Caldara for Maria Theresa's wedding in Vienna in 1736. Niccolò Jommelli's first setting was written for the Viennese court and premiered on 30 August 1749 at the Burgtheater.
Plot
To protect him from the death foretold for him in the Trojan War, the young hero Achilles is disguised as a woman by his mother, the sea nymph Thetis, and sent to the court of King Licomede on the island of Skyros. Living there under the name Pirra, he secretly falls in love with the king's daughter Deidamia. When the cunning Ulisse arrives in search of the hero Greece cannot win the war without him, he eventually tricks Achilles into revealing his true identity and setting off for Troy.
Cultural significance
Metastasio himself singled out Jommelli's Viennese setting for praise, even though the libretto as a whole was not among his most popular. In 1771 Jommelli reworked the opera for the Teatro delle Dame in Rome, where, under the city's ban on female performers, all the women's roles — including Deidamia — were sung by men.