About the work
Adelaide di Guesclino is a dramma per musica in two acts by Johann Simon Mayr to a libretto by Gaetano Rossi, based on Voltaire's 1734 play Adélaïde du Guesclin — Voltaire's first play to feature historical French characters as protagonists. It premiered on 1 May 1799 at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, with Caterina Angiolini in the title role.
Plot
Adelaide, courted by two feuding brothers within a French princely household, is caught between love and political constraints until the turmoil surrounding her affections is resolved.
Cultural significance
Although largely forgotten today, the work was successful in its time and was performed in the years after its premiere in cities including Verona, Modena, Pisa and Siena; a libretto reprint issued in Milan in 1804 attests to its continued circulation.