About the work
Amor vien dal destino is an opera in three acts by Agostino Steffani, with an Italian libretto by Ortensio Mauro after Virgil's Aeneid. Originally composed around 1693 in Hanover for Carnival under the title Il Turno, it was never performed there because its plot came too close to a scandal at court. Only after revision did the work reach the stage during Carnival 1709 in Düsseldorf.
Plot
The plot is based on an episode from Virgil's Aeneid: King Latinus has promised his daughter Lavinia to Prince Turnus, but a prophecy reveals that her destiny lies with Aeneas instead, whose union with her is to give rise to the Roman nation. In the version reworked for Düsseldorf, Turnus survives the conflict and is married off to Juturna.
Cultural significance
The score is among Steffani's richest in sound, including an early use of the chalumeau, and unusually casts the heroine Lavinia for alto rather than soprano. After centuries of silence, the opera was revived in concert in 1981, newly staged at the Berlin State Opera in 2016, and received its first major production in 2026 at Oper Frankfurt — the city where Steffani himself lies buried in the Kaiserdom.